Holy crap.

The music and drug communities have always been closely linked. Sabbath participated in a particular kind of drug use and that shit turned out uber intense and awesome. The Chemical Brothers used some drugs and it ended up being really boring. Whatever pills the Unicorns are popping up there in the land of Rick Moranis and un-ironic mullets, the results are pretty wonderful. They're definitely some kind of fun-drugs -- there's probably a basement lab where ecstasy, those dot candies that come on pieces of paper, really good maple syrup, and super-potent Flintstones vitamins (the kind that got recalled when 8 year olds starting twitching a lot and solving Rubik's cubes during naps) are all thrown in a huge kiddie swimming pool and stamped on by a one-horned mythological creature.

Properly known as Who Will Cut Our Hair When We're Gone?, this sophomore effort from Montreal's Unicorns might be one of the best albums that you didn't know you were waiting for. There's a bunch of weird shit going on here so, naturally, there were a bunch of weird Canadians in the studio banging on stuff and sticking their fingers in things, but the nucleus of the Unicorns is made up of Nicholas "Niel" Diamonds and Alden Ginger. These guys toe the line of "really crazy loveable weirdos" and "pretentious art-school kids toying with our heads," but they usually touch down on the right side. Or they just have me fooled and are having a good laugh right now. Either way, these doods are definitively smarter than me and make the kind of music that reminds me of that with every note.

In general terms, I guess this is lo-fi indie pop of some sort. But that's just one big misnomer, really. Although there's that soft-spoken lo-fi hum, there's also a ton of high-tech studio trickery and effects, which is really what puts this record over the top. And "indie" doesn't mean anything anyway, and pop is a category that includes Justin Timberlake. And although I honestly think Justified is brilliant, putting that in the same category as this would make my brain explode. So I suck, and I'm stuck. For some reason, and I can't really pinpoint it, I'd like to compare these guys to the Shins. Maybe just a quieter, weirder version? I don't know if it's the knack for making unexpectedly great pop songs or just being from a place that sucks, but the bands are lumped together in my mind (and that's the highest of compliments ... to both groups). A more apt comparison might be Ween. Or y'know ... the Unicorns. Ah, fuck it.

Nearly every song on here is a winner, but a few jump out. The fifth track, "Jellybones," uses synth in a way that about eleventy hundred retro-rip-off bands would sell their vintage jackets to be able to do. "Sea Ghost" is catchier than the entire Sean Paul album combined, and on "Inoculate the Innocents" I'm pretty sure the guys sing, "Somewhere in the asshole of my eye, there's a muscle that relaxes when you cry." I have no idea what the fuck that means, but I wish this album had been out when it was time to pick a yearbook quote in high school.

All told, W.W.C.O.H.W.W.G.? rules. The Unicorns have managed to create a fun record with great songs that don't tread on conventional pop-song techniques. I certainly don't mean for this to read as a declaration that the Unicorns saved and/or invented music. They did nothing of the sort. But they did make a record that hasn't yet left my CD player, and that's more than good enough for me.