The Unicorns are pop music, in the way that makes you want to give music one more chance. A much maligned institution, pop is so overabundant that we’re almost justified in taking extreme measures with the entire genre. But before we had to do something drastic (prog-rock ain’t worth it kids), Canada came to our rescue.

The Unicorns’ Who Will Cut Our Hair When We’re Gone? follows The New Pornographers and Broken Social Scene in proving that pop music isn’t dead; it has just moved north. Who Will Cut Our Hair is able to challenge the boundaries of the genre and still produce some of the catchiest music you’ve heard in years.

Themes of mortality and death permeate Who Will Cut Our Hair, but the tongue-in-cheek sugar-coated delivery gives it a bizarre twist. On the first track, “I Don’t Wanna Die,” the lead singer predicts his own demise in a number of grisly manners over a quasi call-and-response interchange that reeks of ‘60s kitsch.

The traditional format of alternating between verse and chorus is foregone on almost all the tracks, allowing for great flexibility in the songs (although the desire to hear especially good verses again is tempting). The Unicorns also don’t constrain themselves to the traditional instrumentation of rock; penny-whistles and fiddles are used on a number of tracks and, although there are only two permanent members in the band, the songs are fleshed out by a large supporting crew.

Although “The Clap” is disappointingly traditional, there are no weak tracks on the record, . Every song has at least one moment of pure, eccentric genius. “Sea Ghost” has a guitar line that simultaneously manages to be lousy and make you want to dance (think Weezer’s Blue Album). “Jellybones” is one of the catchiest songs on the album, but “I Was Born (a Unicorn)” comes in at a close second. “Innoculate the Innocuous” is the emotional center of the album, with an almost Jeff Magnum-esque second chorus that will make you swear there’s still hope for modern pop music.

The bored, angry masses of America’s white suburban youth should be disappointed by the release of Thursday’s lackluster new album, War All the Time. Coming off their subtlely powerful last effort, Full Collapse, they aimed for a higher, more beautiful sound-and fell flat on their face.

If Full Collapse, in all its wrenching tension, could be compared to a scene of shattered crystal glass, the impression that comes to mind with War All the Time is a pasteurized, Hollywood version of hard-edged emo. Even as Geoff Rickley shows hint of brilliance in several inspiring pieces, including “Signals Over the Air,” he ultimately shows his most devoted listeners that he has lost that edge that propelled Thursday into the spotlight.

Rickley’s previous remarkable dynamism is conspicuously absent from War All the Time. The band pulls back slightly from its aggressive delivery although the songs wholly demand the punctuated madness of their earlier work. Without the trademark pulsing current of emotion to carry it along, the over-the-top emo lyrics are cast adrift and simply cannot stand on their own.

Such is the case with the title song, “War All the Time,” placed as the ninth song in the album. While Rickley aims for poetry with lines like “war all the time in the shadow of the New York skyline / we grew up too fast now we’re falling / like the ashes of American flags,” the trademark power of Thursday’s guitar and drum is simply not present to prevent the song from dangerously toeing the line of cheap pop music.

All this is not to say that War All the Time is not a fun, easy album to listen to. In class emo form, the band has crafted an album whose crashing background rhythms and flamboyant lyricism should be familiar to any avid listener. The drove of American kids who were drawn like moths to the rowdy style of earlier albums, however, will find little to worship in Thursday’s newest creation.

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