Light Information, the sixth full-length album from Calgary indie-rocker Chad VanGaalen, is an ambitious album overflowing with energy, eclectic arrangements, and apprehensive lyrics. It’s an album that rages against the tumultuous world we have created for ourselves.
The opening track “Mind Hijacker’s Curse” immediately sets the scene as an otherworldly sonic soundscape fades in before VanGaalen’s wobbly, anguished vocals enter the fold dripping out world-weary lyrics about time you cannot trust, before breaking into a chorus with a vocal hook that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Beach Boys record.
VanGaalen, who wrote and performed the majority of the record by himself, uses this juxtaposition of cryptic lyrics and killer pop melodies to create a sense of uneasiness that pervades Light Information. This is best illustrated on the first single “Old Heads”, as VanGaalen wails out the album’s hookiest chorus, “Who is the operator keeping all my cells together?”
Aside from the Pink-Floyd-esque instrumental “Prep Piano + 770”, the album thrashes along until “Pine and Clover” strips down the sound to a more restrained arrangement reminiscent of VanGaalen’s earlier works.
“You Fool” and “Broken Bell” continue this welcome break from the chaotic first half of the record, before “Static Shape” ends the album on a strangely joyous note with a bouncy arrangement that recalls The Shins.
Light Information is a gripping, challenging album full of rewarding musical experiments and some of VanGaalen’s best songwriting. It’s an immersive work that continually reveals new intricacies on each listen. “Mind Hijacker’s Curse”, “Old Heads” and “Pine and Clover” are fine introductions for newcomers but also stand as some of VanGaalen’s best work sure to please longtime fans.
You can catch VanGaalen at Commonwealth on January 25, 2018, at 7:00 p.m.
Originally published in Oh the Humanity, issue one, a 24-page magazine made at SAIT in 2017, reported, photographed, and laid out solo.