After 2008's Shots, it wasn't a sure thing that Ladyhawk were going to release another album. The Vancouver four piece was destined for cult status, haunting bars as hometown heroes, forever playing local shows for the small but dedicated fanbase they'd amassed. This isn't necessarily negative. Ladyhawk were always about being underdogs. Just about any song in their catalog is so self-effacing, it feels like a miracle that singer Duffy Driediger was able to shepherd it onto an album without being consumed by doubt and trashing it. In Ladyhawk's world, getting it together enough to leave the house isn't easy. Driediger sings from inside a cocoon of weed smoke and Crazy Horse bootlegs, battling personal torment from a back porch littered with empties. It's a world he's resigned himself to as a way of making art, and the reason it doesn't come off as hollow self-pity is that he makes it all so relatable.
Where previous Ladyhawk albums sprawled with extended guitar solos and more-than-the-sum-of-their-parts sloppy chemistry, their third full length, No Can Do, skews closer to lean power pop than to rambling classic rock. Driediger's voice is still cavernous, like he's singing from directly inside a painful moment instead of about one, but the rest of the band tightened around him. Drummer Ryan Peters offers a steady backbone to Sean Hawryluk's dense bass and Darcy Hancock, who previously was a master of down-and-out guitar solos, now chugs along at the forefront, giving Driediger's lyrics nimble freedom. No Can Do might be a thematically dark album, but it's Ladyhawk's lightest yet.
That darkness mostly comes from Driediger, who knows to stick to his lyrical wheelhouse. He's still obsessed with a particular form of adult malaise. On "You Read My Mind" he sings, "Yeah, I've been soft around the middle ever since I was little/ And I'm growing softer all the time, getting high out of my mind," only now, instead of weaving his words across expansive sludgy guitar, the band whirls and pushes behind him. If you're not paying attention to lyrics, "You Read My Mind" is the most uplifting song Ladyhawk have ever written, but it's always been about the details with these guys. Driediger now writes with economy, no word is sacrificed. He doesn't just pace around his apartment when he's sad, he paces around his rented apartment. The fact that he's staring down his 30s in a place he doesn't own clearly isn't lost on him.
As much as No Can Do is about the secret clumsiness of adulthood, it's also not a completely clean break from the band's slower roots. Opening track "Footprints" finds Driediger once again singing about his reclusive life: "I don't go out, I just stay home/ I'm so happy to be on my own." His voice has enough cracks that he doesn't sound especially convinced of that last part. "Footprints" skews closer to Ladyhawk's previous work, and the band doesn't really explore that territory again until closing track "Eyes of Passion", which feels almost dirge-like. Though these songs approximate the sound that Ladyhawk built a following on, they're actually the album's weakest moments.
While it's a promising step forward, No Can Do feels slight, like in the process of refining their sound, Ladyhawk lost some of the gravity and humor that made them so great in the first place. No Can Do has a great string of singles buried in the middle of its brief runtime, but it never quite coheres into a fully formed album. You have to wonder if it really needs to, though. If Ladyhawk were to really succeed, how would a whole new generation of adults know the very specific pain of not finding your way as soon as you'd like to?
