The Hidden Cameras: Mississauga Goddam

The Hidden Cameras' 2003 debut album The Smell Of Our Own became an underground hit thanks to the Ontario band's winning take on Belle And Sebastian/Magnetic Fields-style indie-pop, which extended those two acts' frank gay sexuality into the realm of explicit smut. Still, some complained that Joel Gibb's potty-mouth bandleader shtick seemed too calculated, and wondered if, without the songs about golden showers and enemas, The Hidden Cameras would get as much attention as other twee alterna-bands. That's a fair question, but a moot one. The Hidden Cameras' personality is bound up in camp and provocation, and the music it plays draws from a well-established "raging milquetoast" tradition. The real concern should revolve around whether Gibb's lyrics keep people from noticing how pretty and tuneful his songs are.

The Hidden Cameras' second album, Mississauga Goddam, flows even better than its first, with most of the disc's 11 tracks riding a cushion of minimalist piano runs and rhythmic, tuneless guitar—like John Cale right after he left The Velvet Underground, only punctuated by lush, string-drenched choruses that would make Brian Wilson weep. With Gibbs' nasal, cabaret-ready vocals drifting unobtrusively through the warm instrumental soup, most listeners could hum along happily without realizing that they're enjoying a song that celebrates soiled underwear.

So, yes, raunch continues to play a major role in The Hidden Cameras' aesthetic. But an otherwise clean-sounding song like "I Believe In The Good Of Life" doesn't drop in lines about "the taste of man" just to be ironic or off-putting. Gibbs genuinely believes in embracing the full sensuality of gay sex, the rushes and the messes alike. In Mississauga Goddam's bright fantasy "Music Is My Boyfriend," Gibbs initially worries about what will happen if he and music "make out" or "fall in love," but by the end of the song, he's finger-banging a drum machine and urinating in music's mouth. It's disgusting, but undeniably heartfelt.