Heal Thyself PT. 1: Instinct
Steven Page
Heal Thyself Pt. 1: Instinct is a pop rock album by Canadian singer-songwriter Steven Page, released on March 11, 2016 through Ole/Anthem. It was his fourth full-length release as a solo artist following his departure from Barenaked Ladies — the Toronto band he co-founded and led for two decades — and was co-written and co-produced with Craig Northey of the Vancouver rock group The Odds. Recorded partly at Northey's North Vancouver studio (Doghouse of Thunder) and partly at Page's Ontario facility (Fresh Baked Woods), the album grew out of a creative partnership that had already yielded the earlier "Manchild"/"A Different Sort of Solitude" single, and the bulk of its 12 tracks were reportedly laid down in just three days before overdubs were added with Page's backing band, The Original Six. As Page himself described it, the record chronicles his journey "from angry youth to achieving a little more of an enlightened adulthood," centered on the power of music to heal both its makers and its listeners — a theme embedded in the album's very title.
Musically, the album recaptures much of the quirky pop sensibility that defined Barenaked Ladies' early work while carving out a distinctly personal voice. Highlights include the anthemic "The Work at Hand," the George Harrison-esque "Manchild," the tongue-in-cheek calypso of "Mama," and "Linda Ronstadt in the 70s," a song Page wrote in response to an online challenge and framed as a therapeutic exercise. The record opens and closes with two movements of an instrumental piece, "There's a Melody I" and "There's a Melody II," which bookend the album's emotional arc and would go on to lend their lyrics to the title of the 2018 follow-up, Discipline: Heal Thyself, Pt. II. A reviewer for StageBuddy placed the album in the company of canonical singer-songwriters like Randy Newman and Jackson Browne, suggesting Page had entered "rarefied atmosphere" with the project.
Heal Thyself PT. 1: Instinct
Steven Page
Heal Thyself Pt. 1: Instinct is a pop rock album by Canadian singer-songwriter Steven Page, released on March 11, 2016 through Ole/Anthem. It was his fourth full-length release as a solo artist following his departure from Barenaked Ladies — the Toronto band he co-founded and led for two decades — and was co-written and co-produced with Craig Northey of the Vancouver rock group The Odds. Recorded partly at Northey's North Vancouver studio (Doghouse of Thunder) and partly at Page's Ontario facility (Fresh Baked Woods), the album grew out of a creative partnership that had already yielded the earlier "Manchild"/"A Different Sort of Solitude" single, and the bulk of its 12 tracks were reportedly laid down in just three days before overdubs were added with Page's backing band, The Original Six. As Page himself described it, the record chronicles his journey "from angry youth to achieving a little more of an enlightened adulthood," centered on the power of music to heal both its makers and its listeners — a theme embedded in the album's very title.
Musically, the album recaptures much of the quirky pop sensibility that defined Barenaked Ladies' early work while carving out a distinctly personal voice. Highlights include the anthemic "The Work at Hand," the George Harrison-esque "Manchild," the tongue-in-cheek calypso of "Mama," and "Linda Ronstadt in the 70s," a song Page wrote in response to an online challenge and framed as a therapeutic exercise. The record opens and closes with two movements of an instrumental piece, "There's a Melody I" and "There's a Melody II," which bookend the album's emotional arc and would go on to lend their lyrics to the title of the 2018 follow-up, Discipline: Heal Thyself, Pt. II. A reviewer for StageBuddy placed the album in the company of canonical singer-songwriters like Randy Newman and Jackson Browne, suggesting Page had entered "rarefied atmosphere" with the project.