RENDEZVOUS

The fourth CANO album, 'Rendezvous', continues on the same trajectory set by the former "Eclipse", but now roughly half of the songs are sung in English instead of French. I don't think this is a problem in-and-of-itself, since this is a bilingual band from northern Ontario. (and the vocalists all have perfect accents in both languages). Saying this, it does speak to their desire to tailor their sound for more commercial appeal, and this clearly shows on the album, *particularly* on the English songs. Of the 8 songs on this album, I think only 3 are really good ("Entente", "Other Highways", and "L'Autobus de la Pluie"). Meanwhile, two of the songs here ("Clown Alley" and "Floridarity Forever") are virtually unlistenable (while the remaining 3 are OK but nothing to write home about - I don't have any desire to ever put them on again). So really I would get this album only for the 3 good songs (and only if you already have the first three albums). On balance, I give this 3.9 out of 10 on my 10-point scale, which translates to 2 PA stars.