Here’s a nice review from the Ottawa Citizen, courtesy of Peter Simpson. And, by the way, that Capital Music Hall show in Ottawa is coming up fast (May 5th) and – last time I checked – it’s pretty close to sold out, just so you know…
 Smokin’ Plaskett
Peter Simpson, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Saturday, April 21, 2007

“As a fan in Ottawa said this week, Joel Plaskett’s music is not complex, but it’s always solid, fun and ‘as catchy as hell.’

Ashtray Rock will bolster that reputation. The fourth album from the Halifax-based musician with the Emergency starts off with a rocker that muscles up hints of his Thrush Hermit days, and will serve nicely as a summer anthem. “Drunk teenagers, let’s start a fight/ out getting wasted on a Saturday night … the city or the country, we just want to make some noise.”

The fun comes in the wordplay, and in the blips of falsetto vocals — the backup singers chirping out “fashionable!” or, as incongruous as it may seem, “Bayer’s Road Shopping Mall!” — and in the trademark spritely hooks that dot any music that involves Plaskett and an electric guitar. There are even hints of doo-wop on Penny for Your Thoughts. Plaskett is a composer of serious talent, and part of his strength is that he knows to never take rock too seriously.

There are a few anxious moments when Plaskett wheels in a string section on Nothing More to Say and Chinatown — symphonic snippets are a common urge that, regrettably, many rockers can’t resist — but he avoids stepping in the overwrought cheese. The solid hand of his writing and performing keeps its grip throughout.

It’s all a concept album, it seems, about a couple of teen rockers with their own Yoko, but the themes are so typically Plaskett that you’d never notice. Anyhow, who cares? It’s Saturday. Let’s get drunk.”

Holy smokes, I just noticed that the Joel Plaskett Emergency’s Canadian tour is just around the corner. Seems like just yesterday they were headed off to Australia!

Anyway, thought I’d just point out that fact for those of you thinking about going to the shows. And speaking of the shows, I’m getting advance ticket counts from across the country and, based on those, if you live in Ottawa, Toronto, Sudbury, Calgary or Vancouver – I’d suggest you make the effort to get your tickets sooner, rather than later, because those shows look like they’re definitely going to sell out.

For those of you on the East Coast, never fear; for sure there will be shows added in the summer for Atlantic Canada. As I write this, the lads are holed up in a secret location, learning the ins and outs of the new record. In case you missed it, Peter Elkas and his excellent band will be doing the opening act honours nationally. This will work out well because Pete will be joining the Emergency on stage to help in reproducing Ashtray Rock live properly.

Here’s the review from Halifax’s Coast weekly…

Published April 12, 2007.
Joel Plaskett Emergency
Ashtray Rock
(Maple)
It’s about being in love with music. It’s about the best friends in the band and their friendship that gets wrecked over a girl. In a brisk 40-minutes-and-change, Ashtray Rock is a concept album that dances circles around the pretensions of its gatefold-sleeved ancestors. Anthemic and bittersweet at the same time, the record’s 13 tracks are pitched between exhilaration and despair, and as they address friendship and love and betrayals and endings and forgiveness, the songs are infused with the feeling of that time of your life when everything is happening for the first time. As different from the acoustic-driven La De Da as it was from the stadium rock of Truthfully Truthfully, and as it was from the haunted, country-tinged Down at the Khyber, or the urgent, lo-fi In Need of Medical Attention, Ashtray Rock is a testament to the tuneful, inventive and always evolving songwriting of Joel Plaskett. After last year’s Make a Little Noise EP and the extensive airplay of “Nowhere With You,” Ashtray Rock sees the Emergency reuniting with the EP’s producer Gordie (Big Sugar) Johnson. And if the band giving over the studio reins to Johnson’s radio-friendly polish sounded like a risk, this record shows it was no risk at all. Intimate and heartfelt and full of ear candy, Ashtray Rock sounds like a love letter to the friends Plaskett grew up making music with.
Robert Plowman

And here’s another one, courtesy of Dave at Eye Weekly…

On Disc
JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY ****

Ashtray Rock
MapleMusic

Joel Plaskett’s fifth solo disc is a concept album with a simple premise: two teenagers form a band, then break it up in a fight over a girl. You won’t read blog think pieces about Ashtray Rock; you don’t even have to follow the plot to appreciate the strides Plaskett has made as a songwriter – instead of songs that sound like they were written by a student of anthemic ’70s rock, he finally started writing anthems. There’s residual cleverness in the two-fisted rock of “Drunk Teenagersâ€Â? or “Fashionable Peopleâ€Â? but there’s no winking in the darker numbers, with their betrayal (“Nothing More to Sayâ€Â?) and desperate observations on how breaking up is harder to do in winter (“Face of the Earthâ€Â?). Plaskett’s lyrics aren’t fashionably oblique enough to inspire the hype afforded to our other buzz bands; too often, we conflate epic style with achievement. Ashtray Rock doesn’t trumpet its greatness, but it’s great nonetheless.

DAVE MORRIS

Only a couple of days into the release of Ashtray Rock and folks are already writing really nice things. And we quote Chart magazine here…

JOEL PLASKETT EMERGENCY Ashtray Rock (Maple/Universal)
A minute into hoser anthem “Drunk Teenagers,” there’s a gang-hollered, “I hate Clayton Park!” It’s a line sure to send panic shivers through the hearts of fans of Plaskett’s last band, Thrush Hermit. But the lyric is merely an attention-grabbing dangle to Ashtray Rock’s greater narrative. It’s really a concept album about two young rockers caught in a band-fracturing love triangle. It’s easily the best thing Plaskett’s ever done, as well as one of the most ambitiously executed Can-rock records in years. On their own, the songs are superb. In first single “Snowed In/Cruisin’” and “The Instrumental,” Plaskett brilliantly reclaims the riff-rock he’d seemingly forgotten in his solo years. The Mamas And The Papas tease of “Nothing More To Say” is ensnaring, and “Fashionable People” is like an anti-Bowie response track plucked from the past. Best, though, is that beyond being excellent songs on their own, they all work towards the greater story, which you’ll be busy listening to over and over in order to uncover the subtle details. Ashtray Rock is the album where Plaskett makes his case to follow names like Young, Lightfoot and Cohen. Aaron Brophy
Thanks Aaron!

I’m not sure how this works, but I’ve been assured that this is the review from the April 23rd edition of MacLean’s Magazine…

Music
SMOKIN’ TUNES

After “Nowhere With You” was featured in a Zellers ad last year, Halifax’s Joel Plaskett regains his indie edge with Ashtray Rock, filled with perfect pop songs about two musicians and the woman who breaks up the band. While “Nothing More To Say” is a beautiful, violin-laced track, “Drunk Teenagers”, with ’70s fuzz guitar, seems like a perfect Trailer Park Boys anthem.

-Jeff Harris

Thank you Jeff!