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TORONTO – Metallica producer Bob Rock is serving a taste of his collaborative album with Gord Downie.
“Lustre Parfait,” an upbeat rock ’n’ roll song packed with organs, horns and soulful backing vocals, arrived Thursday on streaming services.
It’s the first sample of a long-rumoured album between the Winnipeg-born record maker and the late Tragically Hip frontman that will be released next year.
The track was composed by Rock and features lyrics and vocals from Downie.
More than a decade in the making, “Lustre Parfait” is the first song from the long-mythologized collaboration of Gord Downie, the iconic late frontman of The Tragically Hip, and Bob Rock, the legendary producer perhaps best known for Metallica’s Black Album. Inspired by their brotherhood in rock n’ roll, “Lustre Parfait” is electrified and resplendent, built in reverence to the magnitude of music itself. Blending poetry and power in lavish measure, the song bursts out of the gate with breakneck pace, organ rolls and horn blasts, inspiring Gord’s thoughtful verse and explosive chorus – a booming invitation to “gather in the dark” for that silent, magic moment when the lights go down and the stars start to star.
An announcement for the upcoming joint effort says Rock and Downie’s project began more than a decade ago after the producer finished work on 2009’s “We Are the Same,” his second album with the Hip.
Downie asked Rock about the possibility of collaborating as a duo, which led Downie to “delve into the depths of his notebooks” for material.
Beyond Metallica’s “Black Album,” Rock has a celebrated history in the music scene that includes winning a Grammy for work on Michael Bublé’s “To Be Loved” album and producing songs by Mötley Crüe, the Cult, Cher and Our Lady Peace.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2022.
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