MAN CAVE: Sam Roberts Band @ North Star Bar, 12/2

The Sam Roberts Band gave North Star a thorough sampling of their best new cuts, as well as fan favorites from their previous three albums.

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MAN CAVE: Sam Roberts Band @ North Star Bar, 12/2

POSTED: Monday, December 5, 2011, 12:00 PM

Filed Under: Music | Man Cave | Concert Review Show

Man Cave is a testosterone-laden Monday feature that highlights the weekend haps of a pop culture-loving Philly dude.

Canadian indie-rock is, in my not-so-humble-opinion, one of the soundest bastions of creativity available to the alt-weekly consuming world. Even their big-label bands tend to embody the spirit of emotion-first, image-last musical whimsy (with one obvious, hilarious exception). Luckily for the savvy, many of Canada's best bands are simply not gimicky enough to have been "heard of" down here, so you can sometimes catch multiple Juno award-winning bands at small venues like the North Star Bar.

Sam Roberts Band — whose genre is basically classic rock — were there Friday to tour their new disc, Colider (which I reviewed back in September.) They gave North Star a thorough sampling of their best new cuts, as well as fan favorites from their previous three albums. The über-honest pop-rockers recently added a sax on some of the new cuts, giving their soaring ditties a boost of density. As always, they closed with the unmanageably epic "Mind Flood," their pysch-rock anthem which Roberts himself nicknamed "Mind Floyd."

I'd also like to mention their opening act, Zeus, a quartet that looked like a biker, a nerd, a joe six-pack and a hipster. Their music sounds suitably organic and disparate. It's rhythmic, marching, harmonic and catchy. With the exception of the drummer, they switch back and forth between guitar, bass and keyboard with almost total equity. Among their occasionally synthy, punk-inspired rock originals, they banged out an unexpectedly sweet cover of "It's Just a Shame That's All" by Genesis. Compelling movements, hooky choruses, short guitar solos and heartfelt wailing are just some of the things you can look forward to if they ever swing back through Philly.

(ryan.carey@citypaper.net) (@slacerDIYtoday)

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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