"Only the High Dials have delivered an entire pop album of psychedelic super-hits: instantly hummable, easily digestible, completely candy-coated and totally fucking sweet. Just add sitar and stir" - 20 best albums of 2005

Normally I am not a big supporter of single EPs. They usually only feature one song that you've already heard, and while they may throw in an additional unreleased song to hook you, they rarely deliver good value for your money. Buying a CD for one song shouldn't even be necessary in this day and age, after all, that's what they invented MP3s for, right? (Wait... did I say that? Nope, I didn't.)

However, when it's an EP from a band like The High Dials, who released one of my favourite albums from last year, I am admittedly much more open to the idea. "Fields In Glass" is the second single from The High Dials' masterpiece A New Devotion, and it is one of many stand out tracks from the album. Lead by a pulsing bassline, complimented by lovely Beatles-esque vocal harmonies, it eventually takes flight into a sky of cascading guitars. The primary purpose of their new Fields In Glass EP is to showcase this song, and under the circumstances, I really don't mind hearing 3 different versions of it. The "Radio Mix" seems to be essentially the same version as the one from A New Devotion. The "Club Mix" maintains the structure and most of the instrumentation of the original, but extends it a bit and adds a steady beat to increase danceability. The "Stained Glass Mix", on the other hand, makes more radical changes and takes the song further into varying degrees of interesting psychadelic and electronic breakdowns.

There are also 2 previously unreleased songs included on this EP. "City Rivers" and "The House Where Trouble Sleeps" are both outtakes from A New Devotion as I understand it. Both are every bit as dazzling as their other songs, and neither stray from their brit-mod-pop-psych roots, but "The House Where Trouble Sleeps" definitely has a more intimate, stripped-down feel that may have seemed out of place on the album. The recordings of these two songs don't seem as pristine and carefully produced as the songs from the LP, but it's possible the lo-fi sound may have been intentional.

Rounding out the 6 song EP is another of my favourite songs from A New Devotion, the instrumental "Things Are Getting Better", featuring meandering sitar and a chorus accented by handclapping and horns. You can't ask for much more in a pop rock and roll song.

If you've never heard The High Dials, this CD has two of the best songs from their full length album, plus a couple great outtakes that you can't get anywhere else. Ideally, it works as both a solid introduction to the band, and also as a necessary addition for hardcore fans.

Hot on the heels of an appearance at this weekend's embarrassment of riches that is Little Steven's Underground Garage Festival in New York, Montreal's The High Dials will somehow make their way to entertain the inhabitants of our humble little burg just three days later. Touring in support of their brand new EP, Fields in Glass (Rainbow Quartz), the band plunders the golden era of '60s Brit-pop, taking cues from lysergic-era Beatles and The Kinks, and does it with as much aplomb as anyone out there today. The songs are rich with texture and harmonies, and are gloriously pastoral to boot. Oh, and hooks. Did we mention the hooks? They're present here in spades. If the CD is any indication, this is going to be one hell of a show, absolutely perfect for a balmy summer night. Or even a hellishly uncomfortable monsoon one. Don't miss it.

The garage renaissance beat bell-bottomed retro pop to the cool kid punch, but if the second album flailings of the Strokes and other purveyors of impetuous garage yelp aren’t enough to fully convince you of that genre retread’s seeming dead-end creative existence, groups like the High Dials at least open your mind to the notion that there’s lots of good, slightly off-the-purchased-FM-dial music out there. Their groovy, ebullient Fields in Glass EP—with solid remixes of the eponymous track by Davy Love and Will Carruthers—is anchored by sunny harmonies and pounding drumwork. “Things Are Getting Better” takes an apparent electric sitar jam introduction and works it into slap-happy lather; it’s the coolest electric acid test kids’ show anthem that you’ve never heard. Expect a dreamy show to put a slow-motion spring in your step.

Oh to have been there when Brit-pop met the Beach Boys, but for those of us who couldn’t make it, there are The High Dials. The band formerly known as the Datsuns, then the Datsun Four, have released their follow up EP to 2003’s A New Devolution and it’s just as catchy as it’s predecessor.

The four, from Montreal, arm themselves with synthesizers and skinny ties to execute their disc of garage-rock meets ‘60s-pop realization. Infectious melodies and a harmonious rhythm section place them neck and neck with their shaggy-haircut, corduroy-wearing contemporaries of the same genre.

The disc, which features four new tracks and two remixes of ‘Fields in Glass’, boasts a strong balance between upbeat pop tunes (‘City Rivers’) to psychedelic chanting, to the heart-string tugging ballad ‘The House Where Trouble Sleeps’.These four Montrealers deliver a solid effort to the pop rock scene and should create a stir in New York this summer as they open for Iggy and the Stooges, The New York Dolls, and The Strokes at Little Steven’s Underground Garage Festival.

There are bits of all sorts of psychedelic influences on the High Dials' retro-esque Fields In Glass EP. Shades of the Stones' Satanic Majesty's Request coexist with the glibber gestures of the Monkees' colourful mayhem. The Dials' stabs at the ornate gestures of the Beatles fall short, but are nearly redeemed by the useful insertion of Manzarek-style Hammond. The predictable sitar accents are there, as are the vocal harmonies à la Byrds and the Beach Boys (but never so well executed). Not to say the High Dials aren't good – they are. It's just that their psychedelia never feels as thoughtful as the music that inspired it. It's all a bit lighter than you'd like. Still, I've been predicting neo-psych as the next watershed pop trend, and the High Dials' directness might make them just the poster boys to push the envelope.

**** Following up on the critical success of A New Devotion, released last year, college-radio favorites - The High Dials - return with a six-song teaser. Fields in Glass includes six songs - including three remixes of the title cut. These remixes - with their sweet harmonies, lush arrangements, and spacey sounds - confirm why Little Steven featured the band's psychedelic pop rock on his show earlier this summer.

Dialing in some past sounds By ALLAN WIGNEY -- Ottawa Sun

The High Dials, according to bassist Rishi Dhir, have been together for a mere two months. But there's a lot more to the story.

The story really begins in 1997 with the arrival of a high-energy Montreal-based trio called The Datsons. Skilled at the art of crafting likeable pop songs, the band gained a following in its home town and here in Capital City before running afoul of a similarly named high-energy outfit from overseas. The solution, made easier by the addition of a fourth Datson, was to rename the band The Datson Four.

"We were coming up with names like The Silver Datsons," Dhir recalls. "Datson Four sounded cool, but a lot of people thought we were called The Danson Four."

Nonetheless, The Datson Four optimistically commenced work on a bona fide concept album, loosely centred around a character named Silas. By the time of the album's release earlier this year, The Datson Four were The High Dials.

"We went through a few hours of being The Copper Peaches," Dhir says with a laugh. "We were getting really desperate and just picking words randomly. But Little Stevie (Van Zandt, he of the E Street Band), he's the one that actually gave us the name. He's a big supporter of the band and when Springsteen came to town he got us backstage and we were talking to him.

"He said, 'What's your new name?' We said, 'the Copper Peaches.' And he said, 'No, that's not your name. We're gonna think of a name right now.'

"Sometimes you just need someone to go, 'That's your name.'"

Fortunately, no one has had to dictate a sound to The High Dials. (Incidentally, only Dhir and frontman Trevor Anderson have Datson links; drummer Robb Surridge and lead guitarist Robbie MacArthur are virgin Dials). Anderson's songs are invariably infectious, while the band's music echoes the best psychedelic sounds taking us from a time long, long ago into a brighter, pop music future.

"We're kind of excited about the fact that it is like starting over," Dhir says of the new identity. "This is a new band, and anyway, over the years our musical tastes and interests have grown, so we're very excited that it's a whole new beginning. I'm sure our old fans will stay with us ... what fans we did have."

The High Dials' album, A New Devotion, has found an appropriate home on Rainbow Quartz International, the independent label with a knack for finding cool neo-psychedelia. There are traces of The Who, The Move, The Kinks and The Small Faces in the music, but Dhir insists the sound is pure High Dials.

"That was the problem with The Datsons," he laments. "People were always so quick to bill us as retro, retro, retro. We can only make the music we can make, but we don't see ourselves as being a retro band.

"Obviously, we love The Kinks, The Beatles and The Who, but there's so much more to us. Look at bands like The Strokes. They're so retro -- they're late-'70s new wave stuff -- but people aren't calling them retro. I guess retro just entails more of a '60s aesthetic."

The '60s aesthetic is there, mind you. And having the chance to share bills with the likes of legendary British Invasion band The Zombies remains a thrill for the Dials.

"They're right up there with The Beatles, for me," Dhir enthuses. In fact, he says, the blueprint for A New Devotion called for a mixture of The Zombies' brilliant Odessey & Oracle and The Pretty Things' ambitious S.F. Sorrow (for the record, the first genuine concept album).

"It started out with that mindset," Dhir relates, "but it grew into its own thing. There are some songs that have this Zombies feel to them and there are Pretty Things moments ... but there's a lot more to it."

THE HIGH DIALS A New Devotion (Rainbow Quartz/Fusion III)

Remember the Datsons? Montreal’s mod ’n’ soul contingent of 2000? Well, now they’ve got a new name to match the new ambitions of this epic, quasi-conceptual opus of an album. Old fans will recognize the smart lyrics and top popcraft, though the ’60s influence swings more towards the Zombies than the Who. It’s retro pop without the limited arrangements, the tinny mix or the rampant kleptomania. It’s a dance party that makes time for melancholy and a touch of the fear. And the disc ends on such a high note, such a tease, that waiting another three years for the sequel seems almost tragic.

9/10 (Lorraine Carpenter)

The High Dials: A New Devotion (Rainbow Quartz)

This Montreal quartet was all set to conquer the world when it ran into a minor problem. Previously known as the Datson Four, it's CD was readied just as New Zealand's The Datsuns and The D4 - formerly, you guessed it, the Datsun Four got hyped here. Mining a vintage vibe far more Zombies than the Kiwi's Stooges-redux riffing, the High Dials sounds fresh off a mid - '60's Merseyside ferry with sweet harmonies, twanging guitars and R&B hooks in retro gems such as the psych-pop "Save the Machine" and mod rocker "The Dead Hand" A refreshing blast of unpretentious power pop.

3.5 Stars (out of 5)

THE HIGH DIALS A New Devotion (Rainbow Quartz/Fusion III)

What would summer be without music reviewers hailing a handful of summer releases as ‘quintessential summer albums’? The High Dials’ effort is almost there, but not quite. A New Devotion has all the fun and head shaking innocence of The Monkees and the intelligent rock of The Who, and it sounds like it could have been produced many, many summers ago. Although intended as a conceptual album — a story about Silas and his attempt to escape a nightmarish futuristic city — the theme is loose and inconsistent. But what remains are vocals as easy as summer breezes, guitar riffs crunchy like sand in your mouth, rattling tambourines like soft waves. "Can You Hear the Bells?" is by far the most compelling of 18 tracks: sexy like a white peasant blouse sliding over a tanned shoulder. The album is lengthy, devoted to accompanying you all the way home from the beach — you’ll fall asleep on the way. It may be the heat, it may be the music, but it’ll be the peaceful sleep of a summer day well spent.

The High Dials Call All Devotees

Never heard of the High Dials? Maybe you knew them as the Datsons, the name they relinquished "kicking and screaming," says singer/scribe Trevor Anderson, after New Zealand’s Datsuns made some noise and stole their thunder. Before all that, the Montreal-based trio made their own noise with the mod and soul-powered album See!, and after two years holed up like "a mad poet in a tower on a cliff edge," the band is back with a new name, a new guitarist and drummer, and a fresh, vibrant sound.A New Devotion (out on July 8 on Rainbow Quartz) is no less than a classic pop album, an hour of infectious rock’n’roll coloured with lush melancholy. To its author, however, it’s a dense, deeply personal creation."I’m still making sense of it," says Anderson, pondering his concept. Yes, concept. "I’ve had this story in mind for years, so it happened really intuitively. Some songs on See! are tied to the same theme, a love/hate relationship with the city and a desire for something that transcends the modern world."Unlike its predecessor, A New Devotion was sequenced to carry the concept and the character, Silas. “I’ve always written different shades of this character, a broken person reflecting on something they’ve lost. I’m very sentimental and nostalgic myself, so those characters always captivated me in books."But with an exciting summertime sound and a subtle narrative (set on planet Earth), the record bypasses those distasteful frills of the ‘70s. “The lyrics are mysterious, like a haze people can look into and see a shadow of themselves," says Anderson. "It’s not like I sat down and wrote out an opera where a narrator’s voice comes in and says, ‘And now Silas leaves the forest.’ I’m so glad we didn’t go there."

“A New Devotion,” (Rainbow Quartz) the latest release from Canadian psyche rockers The High Dials listens like a checklist of pop rock not heard in some time. All the elements are here: songs about freedom, handclaps, full-on tambourine action, sitar, 2, 3 and oh yes, 4 part- harmonies, and jangly guitars. “Devotion” also happens to be a concept record about a future man named Silas, which you won’t notice off hand, so this record works on many levels and its up to you, dear listener, what you want to highlight.

Things kick off with the opener ‘Diamonds in the Dark,’ with its almost ‘Soul Man’ sounding guitar riff until the four part harmonies lift the number and change the mood to a Beach Boys tune. Of the many tunes on this disc, this one sticks with you the longest and is a good intro to the rest of the song cycle. Freedom pops up on the next track, ‘The Dead Hand’ as singer/guitarist/songwriter Trevor Anderson intones, “Feel your lack of volition/ Freedom is just an illusion” over a slinky bass line by Rishi Dhir.

The Dials sound is stylistically reminiscent of psychedelic Sixties British Invasion band, but this is a futuristic concept record. The best example of this juxtaposition is ‘Save the Machine!’ whose long intro sounds like a tune off the Logan’s Run soundtrack with some tabla flourishes before breaking into the verse where it turns into a British Invasion outtake, but with Beach Boys harmonies. The albums’ best moment comes on ‘Assassins’ with a delicately strummed acoustic guitar that drives the song as trumpets and a violin enter and fade on this Spanish sounding number.

As if to explain their influence the Dials wrote an instrumental song that references several great Sixties bands, ‘Things are Getting Better’ (“getting so much better all the time!” That’s a Beatles song lyric for those playing at home) begins with Dhir (who wrote this tune) plucking away at a sitar accompanied by a guitar line playing a near, if not total, rip off of the Beatles’ ‘Taxman’ before suddenly breaking into a Stones horn rave up. Soon the music fades and a lone guitar strums the Who’s ‘Can’t Explain’ before sitar and tabla take over and the song sounds like a Middle Eastern raga, then Stones, then it fades into the album closer ‘Regeneration.

The Dials’ new brand of old school pop seems to already be catching on. Just the other day the unthinkable happened; I watched and listened to a Britney video for ‘Toxic’ and both were great. Middle Eastern melodies and some unusual (for mainstream pop, anyway) harmonies were present, just like in the Dials repertories. Turn up the High Dials; they see the future of music is found in the past.

As sure as Christmas comes every year, records from nowhere will pop up and sneak in among the most interesting records of the year. A New Devotion, a pop record soft as velvet from the Canadian band The High Dials is that kind of record.

Canadian music had a good last year, with great releases from bands like the starlets Hot Hot Heat and their Make Up The Breakdown, and Danko Jones, with their hard rocking album We Sweat Blood. But the biggest Canadian surprise is High Dials, who probably made the most pleasant pop record of 2003.

A New Devotion is their first album after they changed their name from The Datsun 4 in 2002. The change of name was due to certain similarities with The Datsuns and D4, two bands from New Zealand, who both had a breakthrough the same year.  They have released two records in their old name, among them the highly acclaimed See !

The new album contains treats for everyone who enjoys happy pop music. If you want a feelgood record just as the new year gets going, this is one of the safest bets. This band has a huge sense of humour, and maybe an even bigger amount of self confidence. This has resulted in a very tasty record.

When you record an 18 track concept album, with musical references to just about every artist in pop during the last  fifty years, you’re obviously confident. And if they had failed, we could at least have used the record as a frisbee this coming summer.

But being such a good record as it is, there is no reason to complain.  It offers much, and does not demand anything in return, which makes you rather self-conscious.  One hour with long, almost monumental psychedelia contribution arranged beautifully with short shiny happy songs. Songs bringing summer one step closer for each listening, and which give your mind a positive lift.

Fans of The Byrds, Kinks and Love should feel an obligation to buy this album. The sound is deliciously laidback with great hooks and lovely harmonies. All in all this is a record which is very difficult to dislike, and is warmly recommended.

“Yes, the Datsons are still living in that marathon mod-soul dance party they started with last year`s stunning See! and the invitation still stands. Treat your dancing shoes to the killer title tune on this three-track offering, complete with handclaps, la-la-las, falsetto ooh-oohs, and just a sprinkling of the Jam`s `"Town Called Malice." Not to downplay the other tracks, two fine ditties with that deeply woven 60s sensibility. "Behind Closed Doors" boasts jaunty pop simplicity, while a touch of horns, some cheap keys and primitive drum machines fill out the retro texture on "The Sound of Daisy Leaving."

10/10

“At times their sunburst melodies sound arena-big, at time they sound like elegies written in country churchyards next to the Hacienda club” Recommended

"This music is for right here, right now and all-time – classic rock in the greatest sense of the term" - 5 Stars – Top Ten Album of 2005

"Everything that great rock and roll was meant to be: euphoric, pained, sweet, dark, dangerous, passionate, surprising and wholly addictive” - 4 ½ Stars

"Captivating – border-line hypnotic and downright cinematic"

"An immaculate, narcotic pop record"

"One of the 10 best albums of 2005"

"War of the Wakening Phantoms is the sound of a band discovering its soul and creating something beautiful and big… this album will blow you away" - 4 ½ Stars

“Every now and again a band emerges to deliver a monstrous record that conjures up memories of everything that was good about rock and roll – a captivating, blistering sound steeped in the best elements of 60's pop/ soul and 70's punk that is both reverent and creative. Shunning more modern digital recording equipment- "SEE!" was captured on an 8 track with vintage gear- the Datsons have mastered the low glorious warmth of classic 60's "maximum R&B" and brash punk, offering a thunderous rhythm section matched by Trevor Anderson's intoxicating melodies and muscular, potent guitar chops. "SEE!" is reminiscent of the Shel Talmy produced Creation and the Who; it features a more stripped down, aggressive punch and soulful, confident vocals that show the band has done its homework and is poised to conquer.”

"If you’re not already in love, this album approximates its euphoric stupor… Hell, Montreal’s High Dials may change your life" - 4 Stars