PRIMARY URL: https://www.safeashouses.ca/ With a gentle melody to lead the way, Safe as Houses’ tender strings forge a wicked little hook for us to cling to at the onset of their new single “Lucky Lucky,” from the album of the same name. The drums soon join them, texturizing the groove with a jazzy sway that lends its experimentalism to the otherwise black and white structure of the verses. A silky…
SOUNDCLOUD: https://soundcloud.com/whitebeardmusic1 Whitebeard calls his new record a “Nashipeg” album, but to be frank, I hear little of either scene that the term is referencing in its leadoff single “Paris,” which could be described as a confusing hybrid of country, pop and roots rock at best if we were to examine it from a mainstream perspective. However, if we look at this song from an experimental angle, the critical perception…
One of the reasons why more and more pop fans are turning to the indie side of the dial in 2019 is that the mainstream, by and large, has lacked the heart and emotional investment that underground artists like Jon Dowling put into their work every time that they get into the studio to make new music. Dowling himself turns over one of the most erudite compositions to debut in…
A howling vocal harmony lays its sharp hooks into us as we descend into the grooving guitars of “Girl from Caroline,” the third track in a set of eleven that together form So Much Beyond Us, Brooks Forsyth’s new full-length studio album and official follow-up to 2016’s On the Lam and Lonesome. Forsyth turns in his most endearing collection of ballads and roots rockers yet in this LP, which is…
Midnight Shine dispatch a respectable cover of Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” in their latest single, and while it’s not that different from the original in terms of aesthetic and style, it’s still a gripping listen from an adept band of players. In their version of “Heart of Gold,” Midnight Shine incorporate elements of their own Cree culture into the song, including but not limited to translating verses in the…
Skipping like a stone across a pristine lake, a gentle percussion creates a sensuous environment for Labán to unleash his signature serenade in the all-new single “Para Ti,” from the upcoming album Todos Somos Dueños de Aquí. We swing to an affectionate beat while a guitar and bass join forces to paint a vivid picture for us with nothing more than their decadent melodies, and while the strings are as…
URL: http://jeffreyhalford.com/ Americana gets a much-needed makeover in the all-new effort from Jeffrey Halford & the Healers, West Towards South. Recorded in San Francisco and Mill Valley, California, West Towards South features a bittersweet Californian catharsis that blankets the Heartland harmonies and balladic blues elegies and lends a supple surrealism to tracks like “The Ballad of Ambrose and Cyrus,” “A Town Called Slow,” “Sea of Cortez” and “Three-Quarter Moon.” Textures within the string…
URL: https://drakejensen.ca/ I kind of knew what I might be getting into before I heard Drake Jensen’s “Talk Me Down” for the first time. The title conjured images of a man standing on a ledge contemplating plunging to his certain death and, sure enough, the chorus builds around that image. The joy of this song, for me, is hearing how Jensen gets there and the emphatic emotional power he packs…
YOU TUBE: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw3tv2Y9iPCU-FgOmRWRUaw Toronto’s iridescent indie rock syndicate Across the Board drop the high-powered anthology of sonic super-strength that we’ve all been waiting for in their all-new album Wild Ones, and after having the opportunity to review the LP ahead of its highly-anticipated release, I can confirm that it’s everything that critics like myself had hoped it would be. We start off with a haunting prologue in track one that can’t…
URL: http://www.thisislittlebird.com/ When you mix cerebral post-rock that knows no boundaries when it comes to dishing out a mountainous melody with lush R&B harmonics and an ambient groove pattern taken straight out of a science fiction novel, you get Little Bird’s “gHost,” in all of its magical musical glory. Little Bird aren’t a household name, but they have been churning out some really urbane, psychedelic-tinged R&B over the past few…
Bluesy riffs start a fire that singer Ziarra Washington will cool with her sensuous serenade in the stylish hybrid “Redemption Road.” A sly groove will wash away the slightest notion of anxiety as we strut to the beat of “Python.” Washington and saxophonist Mario Castro harmonize in the heavenly melodic tapestry that comprises “The ‘In’ Crowd”,” and in all three of these tracks and the ten that accompany them on…
Christina Reeves and Dimitrios Spanos, co-authors of The Mind is the Map: Awareness is the Compass and Emotional is the Key to Living Mindfully from the Heart, bring a personal touch and considerable intellectual firepower to the aforementioned work. It is a condensed and focused book, clocking in at less than three hundred pages, and their tight aim on promoting a system oriented approach to realizing human potential likely means the…
Making R&B that stands out in the crowded and competitive market that the genre’s biggest scenes have been enjoying the last decade is no easy task no matter how talented the artist, but in Victor Pedro’s “Call Me, I Miss Ya!,” the Nigerian singer/songwriter makes it look incredibly simple. Following collaborations with some of the biggest stars in the South African circuit, Pedro has truly come into his own as…
Millennials can be a tough crowd to please, but Kingdom of Birds are finding a nice niche in their latest record Glitz that appeals to their generation in a uniquely surreal way. Kingdom of Birds are a band of musicians whose ages range from eleven to sixteen, but were you to miss the video for Glitz’ leadoff single “Goodbye” (in which they star), you might be disinclined to realize how young they really are.…
The blast of bass and guitar brutality that comes roaring out of the amplifiers in The Boyzz’ “Too Wild To Tame.” The rollicking riffage of “Have a Good Time (But Get Out Alive)” from Iron City Houserockers at the peak of their creative prowess. Meat Loaf’s theatrical crooning in “Paradise By the Dashboard Light.” Ronnie Spector’s lush lyricism in “Say Goodbye to Hollywood.” The only place that you’re going to find…
URL: https://www.doublevee.net/ The “alternative” branding, as it currently stands in contemporary pop music, doesn’t mean a whole lot to very many people anymore, and it’s got nothing to do with the sudden death of a culture or the musicians who inarguably brought it to life in the first place. It’s because the term has been overused, misapplied and skewed with inarticulate subtexts; but in the case of Songs for Birds…
Canadian rockers The Respectables return with a new album, The Power of Rock and Roll, an accompanying leadoff single and video certain to solidify their longstanding reputation as one of the best rock acts hailing from the Great White North. The eleven song collection is an expertly produced affair courtesy of longtime Rolling Stones collaborator Bernard Fowler with cuts featuring renowned guest stars like guitarist Waddy Watchel, formerly a member of Keith…
Sonic waves of melody that are as light as a feather find a muscular shape that exploits their textures for all that they’re worth in “We’d Find.” Suffocating harmonies tumble from the heavens above and through our stereo speakers in “Wolf.” After a bit of thinking aloud, Katie Schottland lays into the most poignant ballad of her young career in “Left Hand Path.” Her solo project, Swimming Bell, delivers the…
Young Doctors in Love boast a sense of album structure you just don’t hear from young acts anymore. It is not the point of view of curmudgeon – the album simply doesn’t dominate the imaginative landscape of up and coming musicians as it did for previous generations, music distribution is turned upside down compared to traditional models, and thus much of the feeling and instincts for assembling a coherent album…
Pastoral poet Gary Douglas pulls out all the stops in the new single from his eponymous band, “Million Miles Away,” and by my estimation, delivers some of his very best work yet. Anyone who knows Douglas is more than aware of his dynamic skillset as a singer and songwriter, but few would expect the depth of emotion that he imparts in his latest work, which is captured beautifully in an…