Marketing, marketing, marketing -- the "M"-word that we all live and die by.

In the case of Our Lady Peace's new album Spiritual Machines, the disc should be dead like borscht right out of the box.

Not because the album is bad -- in fact it's the best thing OLP have done, relatively speaking of course. But rather because the T.O. quartet and those who market their post-grunge grunge have let it be known that it follows the lead of Radiohead's Kid A release and is a concept record based on the futurist writings of inventor Ray Kurzweil (more specifically, Kurzweil's book The Age Of Spiritual Machines -- When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence).

Though it probably doesn't need to be said, Our Lady Peace are certainly no Radiohead.

And to the band's credit, on Spiritual Machines they don't attempt to be.

Instead they play to their strengths and have produced a fairly straight-ahead rock record under the guise of a concept album. Sure, there are several spoken-word breaks -- interruptions really -- by Kurzweil himself and most of Raine Maida's lyrics have a direct link back to the book, but, odd as it may be, at times their relationship to any grand concept seems tenuous and even irrelevant.

In fact, the album is more successful when you ignore the signs that point to a subtext and listen to it as you would any other rock record.

And if you do that, and if you can forgive Maida's whiny delivery, you'll find a handful of fairly catchy though still rather derivative rock songs -- let's face it, in this country you don't get to the level of Our Lady Peace through excessive originality -- like Right Behind You (Mafia), Life and If You Believe.

It's even a step back production-wise from their other albums, relying more on the basics than studio trickery.

For OLP's sake, let's hope none of their fans get scared off by the use of the "C"-word.

Track Listing 1. Right Behind You
  2. In Repair
  3. Life
  4. Middle Of Yesterday
  5. Are You Sad
  6. Made To Heal
  7. Everyone's A Junkie
  8. All My Friends
  9. If You Believe
  10. The Wonderful Future