MICHAEL MACLEOD

Five-piece indie folk rock group Enter The Haggis began as a party band in 1996 playing Celtic music at festivals and pubs across North America and Europe.

Their latest album, Modest Revolution, is a Kickstarter-funded effort that documents a day in the life of a Canadian city — in this case Toronto — with songs inspired by Globe and Mail articles from March 30, 2012, a full year from the album’s official release date. The topics covered by these songs include the death of the penny and media criticism.

Modest Revolution marks a new direction for the band. They have evolved from an almost purely Celtic folk rock band, playing lighthearted original tunes and upbeat traditional fare, toward a downbeat modern kind of folk rock.

Ranging from slow and melancholy to modestly uptempo, the album is an easy listen. But with no standout track, Modest Revolution may well end before a listener hears anything that grabs their attention.

Modest Revolution washes over the listener like a sea of white noise.

However, the album effectively provides a snapshot of daily life in Toronto, with the tone perhaps helping that snapshot. If it’s just an ordinary day in Toronto, why would there be any major tonal shifts in the album? This may be the album’s biggest fault: By succeeding in capturing the ordinary day, Enter the Haggis created an album that is itself… ordinary.

Modest Revolution is passable, but Enter The Haggis really suffers from the lack of party attitude.

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Photo: Supplied