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"Sunglasses and handkerchiefs/ I'm chronicling, oh everything/ That's happened to us/ So hate me if you must/ It's so easy to do, and so convenient." — "C'Etait Pour La Passion"
Since End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story's release over a year and half ago, Montreal's infamous sextet issued an EP on a new record label; they've also toured like mad, sometimes playing almost entire sets of new, unrecorded material. But End of... is where it all began, and a large part of why The Dears have been called the best band in Canada.
End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story is sonically gorgeous. Imagine if Serge Gainsbourg and The Smiths had a love child: You would call it The Dears. The album is a chronicle of heartbreak set to organs, cellos, and guitars that sound just as heartbroken as lead vocalist Murray Lightburn singing the lyrics of their discontent.
It goes almost without saying that End of... is bleak — a tearing-at-your-heartstrings kind of bleak — with song titles like "Heartless Romantic" and "There Is No Such Thing as Love." Consider these lyrics from "This Is a Broadcast": "I'm the one who's very fond of adventure/ Tripping over feet I scrape my knees/ Seeking out my lover only she can cure/ My unbearable open wounds."
Still, it's an amazingly beautiful kind of bleak, one that makes you want to listen to it again. And again. And again. And maybe you'll be a bit like me, freaking out if you misplace your copy, ransacking your own house so you can get your Dears fix. Yes, it is really that good.
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