The Hidden Cameras
Mississauga Goddam
Release Date: Oct 12, 2004
Genre(s): Indie, Rock
Record label: Rough Trade / Sanctuary
Music Critic Score
How the Music Critic Score works
Album Review: Mississauga Goddam by The Hidden Cameras
Great, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 4/5
The Hidden Cameras' 2003 debut album, The Smell of Our Own, featured a track called Golden Streams. You hesitate to trot out superlatives for fear of sounding hyperbolic, but it is safe to call Golden Streams the most beautiful song ever written about being urinated on during sex. Such is the art of the self-styled Canadian "gay folk church" sextet.
Based on rating 7/10
Toronto's Hidden Cameras do their best to avoid being pigeonholed as "that band that sings about urine" by writing more songs about urine on their infectious third release, Mississauga, Goddam. Singer/songwriter/guitarist Joel Gibb's clever observation on life, love, and gay culture are just as naughty and scene-stealing as they were on 2003's Smell of Our Own, but there's a newfound sense of poignancy that overrides much of Mississauga's patchwork nihilism. Fans of the chamber pop collective's Phil Spector wall of sex will be happy to know that all of the group's signature strings, glockenspiels, and harp swells remain, though this time around they're as clear as day, resulting in a vast improvement over Smell's often murky go-go dancer atmospherics.