Tragically Hip ~ Day For Night

One of the Hip's darker records, Day for Night, which shares a title with the 1973 François Truffaut film, is low on the hits but strong on mood and atmospherics. Songs like "Inevitability of Death," "Fire in the Hole," "Emergency" and "Thugs" are gritty and raw even by this quintet's uncompromising standards, while the tugging bass line in "Grace, Too" serves to emphasize the mercenary sexual goings-on in the lyrics. As usual, it's singer Gord Downie's barbed words and poetic images that most help the Tragically Hip rise from the level of an above-average bar band to something more mysterious and universal. In "Yawning or Snarling" he sings of a "throbbing bladder of light" (well, it works in context), while the nightmare that informs the haunting "Nautical Disaster" builds to a neat lyrical twist. (The song also qualifies as one of the group's best.) With so much foreboding infecting its tracks, Day for Night may not qualify as the Hip's feel-good record, but it has its share of remarkable moments.

1 Grace, Too

2 Daredevil

3 Greasy Jungle

4 Yawning Or Snarling

5 Fire In The Hole

6 So Hard Done By

7 Nautical Disaster

8 Thugs

9 Inevitability Of Death

10 Scared

11 An Inch An Hour

12 Emergency

13 Titanic Terrarium

14 Impossibilium