As someone that never understood the hype around Canada’s legendary The Tragically Hip, I do have an appreciation for the earlier years when the band had a raw, hungry energy that seemed exciting. The songs of *Up To Here* and, most notably, *Road Apples*, invite listeners to an era when the band was discovering its direction and experimenting with guitar sounds and upping its poetic lyrics.
Enter *Saskadelphia*, an EP of music that could easily be part of either of those two classic albums, but exists as a collection of unreleased songs from the *Road Apples* recording sessions.
This is The Hip that makes my ears perk up; it's passionate, powerful and hungry. For diehards, it’s a peek at the rest of the album that *Road Apples* could have been, but for casual listeners and audiophiles it completes the picture of a certain era in time. It even borrows its *Saskadelphia* title from the original working title of what was originally going to be a 1991 double album.
Standouts on the EP include the rockers "Ouch", "Not Necessary" and "Just As Well", which capture that *Road Apples* vibe perfectly. Songs like "Montreal" (long forgotten until recorded live in that very city in 2000) show a bit of the experimentation that was to come on future albums and "Reformed Baptist Blues" comes across like a band that just wanted to jam.
While *Saskadelphia* won’t change my opinion of the band, it does bring back some memories of a cool little Kingston band that was on a mission to rock the country back in the early 90s. For fans, it's another piece of a puzzle they knew existed but never heard.
