CD Review

Artist: The Trews

Title: No Time For Later

Label: Universal

Released: February 11^th 2007

4 ½ Stars

Reviewed By: Kindah Mardam Bey

The Trews are really great, and seem to have etched a great personal style out of a well tread track of rock music. Their third full-length studio album No Time For Later is jam packed with brilliant tracks set for the charts. After listening to the full album you feel both exhausted and rejuvenated. Nobody was more surprised than myself to love the hit single ‘So She's Leaving' from their Den Of Thieves album released in 2005, but talent is undeniable, no matter what category its in.

Easily identified as hard rock, The Trews are a throwback to the 80s and 90s when rock music dominated. Rock music is more punk inspired these days (Billy Talent, Green Day, Sum 41, Blink 182, etc), but The Trews have derived their influences from those early Brian Adams, Bruce Springsteen days that defined a hard and efficient sound.

No Time For Later is an enriched, souped-up improvement from Den Of Thieves (which was an album we also appreciated for its distinctive approach).

Right out the door and the title track of the album is a pulsing Counting Crows (circa early 90s) type track, but I was really impressed with ‘Paranoid Freak' an inspired, edgy track with a great piano ending, something reminiscent of ‘The Entertainer.' The Trews may live in Toronto now, but it is easy to see they miss Nova Scotia with classic Maritimes upbeat rock songs like ‘I can't Stop Laughing.'

‘Gun Control' is another classic song with a worthy sentiment behind it with the lyric ‘I don't want to hear about his troubled past, theirs a million little freaks with a past like that' as a rebuke to the excuses people come up with for violence. ‘Will You Wash Away' is a clear hit, catchy and upbeat.

I can't wait to see where No Time For Later goes, but I know it will be a big hit; the tracks are solid, well formed and pithy. When rock music is this good, even I could listen to it all day.

1. No Time for Later
2. Dark Highway
3. Be Love
4. I Feel the Rain
5. Paranoid Freak
6. I Can't Stop Laughing
7. Man of Two Minds
8. Hold Me in Your Arms
9. Gun Control
10. Will You Wash Away
11. End of the Line
12. Burning Wheels
13. Ocean's End