by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

It’s almost a fairy-tale story—“Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” specifically. Once upon a time, Winnipeg’s Rod Slaughter was the bassist, singer and lyricist in stripped-down mod unit Duotang. When that went on hiatus (drummer Sean Allum is a dad now), Slaughter tumbled into Novillero, a complicated sextet with numerous ’Pegger-pop luminaries.

As rich and diverse as the first incarnation of Novillero was (witness their gorgeous debut disc The Brindleford Follies, from 2001), it was too ambitious, too hard to hold together.

“I don’t know if Duotang was too small—it was a different thing—but the sextet was maybe too large,” says Slaughter. “It got a little too hard to be creative and still retain a good backbone of energy. It was too diverse, too directionless in the end.”

The “Aaaaah, just right” kicks in with the new quartet configuration of Novillero, who’ve distilled the best parts of power pop and piano pomp, mod and Mersey Beat, into a smart, propulsive sound that’s impossible to shake—one listen to “The Hypothesist” or “The Art of Carrying On” off their new disc, Aim Right for the Holes In Their Lives, and you’re hooked. “We honed in on the sound—it’s all the same influences, basically, all same ingredients, but more focused into a cohesive sound.”

Lyrically, Slaughter remains as clever and incisive as ever, again zeroing in on corporate cubicle culture and the boys’ night out as life sentence, not jailbreak. “The whole album has a thread through it—it’s not necessarily disenchantment, it’s not a down record. It’s from the point of view of different characters who feel that the whole culture, basically, is built upon always striving to be the best. That’s what capitalism is built upon. The characters are saying, ‘Fuck it, I’m happy where I am.’ It could be the person who’s stuck going to the same club he’s been going to for 10 years, or someone who’s stuck in the same job for 10 years, or the same marriage for 20 years. It’s all these people who’ve hit a point in their lives where they’re sick of striving.”

With Two Hours Traffic and the Attics at Petit Café Campus on Saturday, June 11, 8 p.m., $6.50

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