Fully Completely

Released in 1992, Fully Completely is the album that marked the Tragically Hip’s coming of age, both commercially and artistically. A quintessentially Canadian band with a huge, fiercely loyal fan base at home, this album arguably represents the pinnacle of the Hip’s songwriting. Impressive from start to finish, the songs on Fully Completely are at once overtly powerful and subtle, featuring muscular riffs and great guitar interplay backed by poetic, literate lyrics steeped in mystery, wit, and vivid imagery (“Pigeon Camera” and “Locked In the Trunk of a Car” are but two great examples, but the words could apply to any of them). With “Looking for a Place to Happen,” “At the Hundredth Meridian,” and “Fifty- Mission Cap” they craft a mythology that seems to stretch across the entire history of Canada without ever directly saying so. That said, the album, and the band, is anything but provincial. It rocks hard, brilliantly builds and releases intensity, and also includes a solid ballad (“Wheat Kings”). In short, an inspired album that deserves to be ranked among the best rock albums of the ‘90s, in Canada or anywhere else.