The reissue of FULLY COMPLETELY is an Enhanced audio CD which contains regular audio tracks as well as multimedia computer files, including videos for the songs "Courage," "At The Hundredth Meridian" and "Locked In The Trunk Of A Car."
The Tragically Hip: Gordon Downie (vocals); Paul Langlois (guitar, background vocals); Bobby Baker (guitar); Gord Sinclair (bass, background vocals); Johnny Fay (drums).
Recorded at Battery Studios, London, England.
This is an Enhanced CD, which contains both regular audio tracks and multimedia computer files.
Fully Completely is where Kingston, Ontario's Tragically Hip finally come to the apex of their talent. Lead singer Gord Downie sounds crisp and full of life, and the songs he verbally dramatizes are rich in lyrical sharpness and instrumental color. With more than half of this album's songs being released to Canadian radio, it established the Hip as a mainstream contender and rescued them from their bar band persona. Songs like "Courage" and "At the Hundredth Meridian" glimmer with Downie's poetic finesse while basking in the dimmed glow of background guitar. "Fifty-Mission Cap" is centered around their interest of hockey nostalgia, and "Locked in the Trunk of a Car" simmers with an R.E.M.-type brusqueness that hovers in mystery. The astuteness of "Wheat Kings" comes off as one of their best slow songs, once again elevated from Gord Downie's peculiar unequivocalness. Letting Downie glide into each song with his complex philosophical idioms was a step in the right direction, a feat that was almost mastered on 1991's Road Apples, but fell just inches short. The Tragically Hip prove on Fully Completely that their level of maturity and musical craftsmanship have finally come to fruition. ~ Mike DeGagne
In the tradition of bands like R.E.M. (and the early Stones), The Tragically Hip wear the outsider's mantle with power and style. And while they may indeed be tragically hip, that shouldn't imply that their jangling, guitar-inflected tales of rural rock outcasts and post-punk alienation aren't ready for prime time, because FULLY COMPLETELY is a tough, focused, rivetting rock record.
The songs on FULLY COMPLETELY travel a dark highway of rock 'n' roll roadstops on the way to nowhere, longing for a world gone by ("We'll Go Too") and a sense of connection (the title song, with its ironic echoes of "Mission Impossible"). The music itself is their release, and the guitars of Bobby Baker and Paul Langlois flesh out the quavering rage and desperation of Gordon Downie's voice with something approaching heroism (to particular effect on the nostalgic acoustic song "Wheat Kings"), as the Tragically Hip walk the line between rustic roots and hard rock with a singular sense of style. minimize