The Hidden Cameras' 2003 debut album, The Smell of Our Own, featured a track called Golden Streams. You hesitate to trot out superlatives for fear of sounding hyperbolic, but it is safe to call Golden Streams the most beautiful song ever written about being urinated on during sex. Such is the art of the self-styled Canadian "gay folk church" sextet. Witty examinations of the more louche aspects of sexuality are masked by music so exquisite that the provocative subject matter barely registers.
Anyone unsettled by the Hidden Cameras debut's lyrical content, may find their enjoyment of its follow-up hindered by the fear that listening to it could cause burning sulphur to start raining from the heavens. Mississauga Goddam spends 40 minutes conflating leader Joel Gibb's sexuality with his strict Christian upbringing. Songs such as That's When the Ceremony Starts and In the Union of Wine arrive equipped with many wry lyrical puns about kneeling to receive his body, taking the sacrament in your mouth, etc.
While The Smell of Our Own sounded joyful even when wiping pee out of its eyes, there is a note of anger throughout Mississauga Goddam. It boils over finally in the closing title track, which scorns the residents of Gibb's hometown as "people who carry the weight of common evil". The overall effect of the song is heightened by the fact that the words are set to the sort of pretty melody that Belle and Sebastian might come up with in one of their more delicate moods.
The Hidden Cameras' other mode is strident, Phil Spector-inspired thunder, complete with strings, brass and rumbling timpani. And anyone requiring further proof that they are an entirely unique band is directed to I Want Another Enema, which, it is safe to say, is the catchiest song ever written about wanting another enema.
