The Tragically Hip "Up to Here" (1989) review

(The second in my series of Tragically Hip album overviews, in which I investigate the discography of this criminally undervalued Canadian band).

The Tragically Hip's debut long player, Up to Here, is a considerable improvement over their tentative eponymous EP. The band was paired with experienced and respected studio vet Don Smith, fresh off of engineering U2's blockbuster Rattle and Hum, the Traveling Wilbury's successful first album, and Keith Richards' debut solo album, Talk is Cheap. With Smith in the producer's chair, and the recording sessions at Memphis' legendary Ardent Studios, the Hip's sound is punchier and more assertive than on their 1987 EP.

But it wasn't just Don Smith or the recording studio that made a difference in the Tragically Hip's sound, Gord Downie and company's songwriting had improved exponentially in the intervening two years. Anthemic tunes like "Blow at High Dough" and "New Orleans is Sinking" were immediately embraced by fans and became consistent concert staples for the rest of the band's career.

Besides Gord Downie's distinctive vocals and lyrics, a major key to the Hip's sound is the interweaving guitar work of Rob Baker and Paul Langlois. The Baker/Langlois attack is unleashed immediately on the swaggering "Blow at High Dough." "They shot a movie once/In my hometown/everybody was in it/from miles around," so begins Downie's narrative, which after that fairly straight-forward opening, ventures into more impressionistic territory. Is the song about a porn film? Or is it about something else? The only one who really knows is Gord Downie. Whatever the song is about, it rocks hard, dude!

The next two songs on Up to Here, "I Believe in You" and "New Orleans is Sinking," are rock and blooze workouts. The kind that the Hip spent years tearing through at the sweaty Horseshoe Tavern in Toronto and numerous other bars across the Canadian provinces.

The Hip slow it down for the dark, harrowing storytelling of "38 Years Old." With barely more than acoustic guitar accompaniment, Downie relates the story of "Michael", one of twelve men who escape from the Millhaven Institution--referred to as "Millhaven Maximum Security" in the song--in Bath, Ontario. (The song is loosely based on real events). After his escape, Michael returns to his childhood home and has a brief reunion with his family before the house is surrounded by police and he is taken back to prison. This capsule description is selling the song short. It's among the most linear and direct songs that Downie has ever written, and is superb in its poignancy and its small details ("same pattern on the table/same clock on the wall/Been one seat empty eighteen years in all" and the pointed description of Michael's life: "He's 38 years old/Never kissed a girl") What makes Michael's story even more moving is that, as told in the song, he has been imprisoned for a crime that seems a justifiable action.

"She Didn't Know" is heartland rock with more dark subject matter, and "Boots or Hearts" is the Hip doing their best Rolling Stones "Honky Tonk Women" impression. (“She Didn’t Know” ia about a woman at her wit’s end in an abusive relationship, while "Boots or Hearts" is a more lighthearted and amusing look at a relationship going down the drain).  On this album and to a lesser extent on its follow-up, 1991's Road Apples, the band wears its love for the Stones brightly and boldly on its collective shoulder. There's nothing wrong with loving the Stones. If you're gonna emulate anyone, you could  do worse than the Stones. With the sympatico guitar interplay of Baker and Langlois, the Tragically Hip are more than equipped for it.

At this point in their career, the Hip were still trying to find their sound, and were not quite capable of filling an album with great material. Up to Here is frontloaded, with the best songs in the LP's first half. Though songs like the rollicking "Everytime You Go" and "When the Weight Comes Down" are pleasant enough, they are filler. To the band's credit, just when it appears that the album is about to blandly stagger to a dull ending, Downie and company pull out the elegiac, R.E.M.-ish jangle folk pop of "Another Midnight" before concluding with the low-key and dark "Opiated."

Up to Here is a significant step up from the Tragically Hip's debut EP, but is still somewhat inconsistent and often derivative. Still, the songwriting and musicianship are strong, but would become even better on the next album, Road Apples.