It’s been a while since the last Sloan album and I feel it’s about time. Although this is a worthy inclusion into the Sloan cannon, the group has a serious case of “Robert Pollard-itis”. That is have 30 tracks, but only about 14 complete songs – the remainder are melodic snippets. It’s as if they decided after a minute of playing a song, “Ok, Let’s do something else.” These songs should have been worked on and expanded or kept in the vaults. As it is they are interesting snippets. However the other songs more than make up for it. “Fading Into Obscurity” is a great Abbey-road styled epic song with changing key signatures and themes. “Before the end of the Race” is a classic Sloan song complete with hand claps and ringing guitars. In fact, lots of the songs sound like they were written prior to the “Navy Blues” period. So they really aren’t changing the Sloan sound any further than previous albums. Maybe these were demos they wanted to release? Anyway, you the listener will have to be the editor here, and pick out the songs you like. Currently this CD is an import you can get on Not Lame or Amazon and it’s a bit pricey. If you are a Sloan fan, get it for sure. Others can wait for a US release.