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Dean Drouillard
Flood
(independent) - 2017
Michael Panontin
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Though hardly a household name, Dean Drouillard is well known to insiders as one of Canuckistan's quintessential sidemen. As musician and producer, his name can be found in the liner notes of numerous recordings by the likes of Sarah Harmer, Royal Wood and Justin Rutledge to name but a few.
The Windsor-raised Drouillard has also managed a half-dozen or so recordings of his own in the last couple of decades, ranging from the mid-fi musings of 2003's Dust to the more rustic sounds on the all-instrumental UFO Houses. Flood, which the one-sheet refers to as "his rangiest yet", is a motley assortment of songs of a decidedly indie-ish bent. In fact, much of the album feels like a dig-through of somebody's scuffed-up nineties CD collection, especially on tracks like the shoegazy 'Fall Away' or the rougher-hewn 'Stargazer', both of which could easily have been on random shuffle two decades ago.
Still, things seem to fare much better when Drouillard ups the complexity level a notch or two. A deftly plucked upright bass, for instance, injects just the right amount of elasticity into the jazz-tinged 'Rare Model'. Similarly, the breezy 'Mid Sea', an otherwise fairly standard country-folk tune, is buffed up considerably with the addition of some cleverly placed cello and Joshua Van Tassel's beautifully underscored drumming.
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Dean Drouillard
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