David Kilgour, Here Come the Cars (side A)

Here Come the Cars, Kilgour's 1991 debut solo LP, was reissued on vinyl in 2012.  As on the Clean's Vehicle, which preceded it by a year, the songwriting here pays more attention to its craftsmanship than did the early Clean classics, which were more punk-informed and simple.  Kilgour's performance here is distinctly more laid-back than anything he'd done up until this point — tempos tend to be slower, and many songs are built on an acoustic guitar's rhythm parts.  The opener and title track emphasizes a complex arrangement of subtly layered guitars and piano, with plenty of open space.  Other songs, like "Shivering" and "Spins You Round" are built on a rhythm guitar and vocal melody in a fashion somewhat closer to Kilgour's writing for the Clean.  While Here Come the Cars has always sounded soft and midrange-y, some songs on this reissue nicely emphasize detail in the high frequencies.  The electric guitars on the opening title track, for example, sound impressively spacious.  Some of the sparser tracks sound closer to the original release, as perhaps there was less high-end energy to emphasize — the resulting album feels a bit uneven sonically.  The cover portrait of Kilgour provides an intense close-up, when expanded to fill 12 inches for vinyl.