September 29th, 2009
Live Video of Passenger Action Posted
Thanks to Jamie Reinhart for posting Absent Minds from a Spring Edmonton Show for PA. Go to PA LIVE
Category: Passenger Action
September 29th, 2009
Sights & Sounds/Passenger Action on Tour this Fall in Canada
Both bands will be heading out as support for Moneen this November. Click through for the dates as of now and check the tour page for updates.
11/25/09 - Vancouver, BC @ The Venue (S&S and PA)
11/27/09 - Calgary, AB @ Local 522 (S&S and PA)
11/28/09 - Edmonton, AB @ The Pawn Shop (S&S and PA)
11/29/09 - Regina, SK @ The Exchange (S&S and PA)
11/30/09 - Winnipeg, MB @ West End Cultural Centre (S&S and PA)
12/01/09 - Thunder Bay, ON @ Black Pirates Pub (S&S Only)
12/04/09 - St. Catharines, ON @ Level 3 (S&S Only)
12/05/09 - Guelph, ON @ Club Vinyl (S&S Only)
12/06/09 - Hamilton, ON @ The Casbah (S&S Only)
12/08/09 - London, ON @ Call The Office (S&S Only)
12/12/09 - Ottawa, ON @ Mavericks (S&S Only)
Category: General
September 29th, 2009
New Grave Maker 7 Inch Available Next Week
Home is Where The Heartache Is will be out on October 6. Three songs on three different colours (Black, White, Clear). It’s available now through Interpunk.com and at RevHQ
Category: Grave Maker
September 29th, 2009
Propagandhi Interview Posted
Vegetarian Star talks with Chris about all this humane meat stuff. Video is at Vegetarian Star
Category: Propagandhi
September 29th, 2009
Propagandhi Announce UK Tour Dates
They’ll be in the UK this November and December with Strike Anywhere and Protest The Hero
30.11.09 London UK @ Koko
01.12.09 Leeds UK @ Rios
02.12.09 Cardiff UK @ Coal Exchange
03.12.09 Dublin IR @Village
05.12.09 Belfast IR @ Limelight - TBC
06.12.09 Edinburgh UK @ Studio 24 (HMV Picture House)
07.12.09 Bournemouth UK @ Academy
08.12.09 Nottingham UK @ Rock City
Category: Propagandhi
September 25th, 2009
Carpenter Confirmed for the FEST8!
Carpenter achieves one of their goals for 2009!
Carpenter will be down in Gainesville this October as part of Fest 8. As usual, it is an incredible line up so to say the least, they are freaking out like grade 5 elementary school boys about to go the dinosaur museum. That’s excited. Go to The Fest 8 for all the details. They are playing on Sunday at The Venue Side Stage from 4:20-4:50 PM.
Category: Carpenter
September 24th, 2009
Holy Shit, SBB are Back!
This is relatively old news, but Small Brown Bike are back together again!
Our lovely friends in SBB are back with the original lineup and are set to do shows through out the fall. Just confirmed - an appearance at The Fest at the end of October. All Hail SBB!
Official announced shows:
10/10/09 - Kalamazoo, MI @ State Theatre
12/04/09 - Chicago, IL @ Beat Kitchen
12/05/09 - Lansing, MI @ Mac’s Bar
Category: Small Brown Bike
September 23rd, 2009
Monolith Review from Altsounds
Another great review for Sights & Sounds. Go to AltSounds.com
FULL REVIEW:
This album is a credit to Sights and Sounds. A brilliant album that captures the very essence of rock.
This 13-track strong Album, “Monolith” is a great collective piece of work and a brilliant example of just how talented Sights and Sounds are both in terms of musical ability and song writing skills. “Monolith” seems to offer a wide range of hard slamming, energy fuelled, raw rock emotion music as well as the subtle and melodic slower paced tracks. Tracks such as ‘Sorrows’ touch on the darker side of the music, with a sound for fans of Killswitch Engage’s epic choruses. Tracks such as ‘The Clutter’ seem to offer a more melodic touch of style to it with the whisper-like vocals and even the clean electric guitar. ‘The Clutter’ is fast becoming one of my favourite tracks by Sights and Sounds.
“Monolith” is the kind of album that may well have something to offer everyone. As mentioned the heavier tracks will appeal to the rock star in you providing you with the audio aggression you need to take the edge off. Then there are the more subtle, and slightly ballad-esque tracks that will appeal to fans of the softer side of rock and even those who only invest their musical time in rock on the odd occasion. “Monolith” is an excellent collection of tracks; some that will easily do quite well with most fans of music, and others that you will probably never hear on mainstream radio (unfortunately for us). The diversity of the vocals helps to ensure that Sights and Sounds have a wide ranging target audience also. Some of the songs on “Monolith” have a raw, edgy and slightly aggressive vocal style, while others create a soft and ‘sing-along’ feel that will appeal to those music listeners that want a more relaxed mood.
Sights And Sounds have created an album that is definitely worth the time of any listener. I would advise you to try it yourself as I’m fairly sure that anyone will find some form of enjoyment from “Monolith.”
Category: Sights and Sounds
September 22nd, 2009
Sights & Sounds Interview
New interview with Rave Magazine from Australia. Click HERE
FULL INTERVIEW:
ANDREW NEUFELD, front man of Canadian hardcore kings Comeback Kid and now guitarist/vocalist for SIGHTS & SOUNDS, talks to LINDSEY CUTHBERTSON about their new album Monolith and the amazing creative experience that went with it.
Sights & Sounds is hard to lump into a musical box because the alternative rock group from Canada have their fingers in so many styles. Metal, punk, atmospheric rock its all there and achieved so well on their debut album Monolith. The newest project of Comeback Kids Andrew Neufeld and featuring members of Sick City and iconic ‘90s metalcore group Figure Four (for whom Neufeld was also a member), Sights & Sounds has been in the works for the last three years.
We wanted Sights & Sounds to be out there and we wanted to be a band that is always changing, says Neufeld. That aspect of the band works for us and against us in a way: the positives are that we can do whatever we want with our songs and let the songs breathe and give them these atmospheric elements. The negatives are that there is no genre for our band and theres not really any place for us anywhere. We get thrown on weird bills with metal bands, and most of the time we will end up either being too heavy or too light for the bands we are playing with, but its ok, because we wanted Monolith to be eclectic and I think we achieved that.
Having four members live on different sides of Canada gives shape to a fairly unusual writing and recording experience. Sights & Sounds would get together whenever they could, writing music for a week straight before heading off to their respective lives again. Once they were ready to record, they went with none other than one of metals most eccentric and adored producers, Strapping Young Lads Devin Townsend.
It was definitely the most unique writing experience I have ever had. We have been writing these songs ever since we started being a band there are some songs on here that we worked on for two years and couldnt get them right, before eventually we figured them out before recording, Neufeld says.
Given the bands penchant for embracing many styles of alternative music on their debut (except you wont find any ska or country on there, jokes Neufeld), it was also an opportunity for singer to really experiment with his lyric writing.
We all live very transient lifestyles, me especially: Im basically homeless, I live out of a storage unit and Im on tour all the time. Ive been travelling like that for ten years so Monolith is all about saying hello and goodbye and the ins and outs of that lifestyle. Lyrically its a travelling record, but we also wanted Monolith to be an album for someone to listen to when theyre travelling.
Listening to Sights & Sounds is a journey in itself, and on the back of an album such as Monolith the band will indeed go far. How far is anyones guess, but the album title says it all for itself: Monolith is a huge debut for a band still in its formative years.
MONOLITH is out now through Smallman/Stomp. http://www.myspace.com/sightsandsounds
Category: Sights and Sounds
September 15th, 2009
Smallman at POP Montreal
Smallman and CJLO are co-hosting a night of music at this year’s POP Montreal Festival.
Mark your calendars. The special night is Saturday October 3. The venue is Les 3 Minots (3812 St. Laurent, between rue Roy E and rue Napoleon). Line up is: Greg Macpherson (midnite), Carpenter (1am), Jon McKiel (11pm) and Rah Rah (featuring Joel and Erin from Sylvie) (10pm). Tix $10 or free with POP Montreal Festival Pass. Go early and get Ruben drunk so that he leaks all of the Smallman secrets - like who wears the tightest underwear.
Category: General
September 15th, 2009
Sights & Sounds Interview
A video interview with Sights & Sounds on punkradiocast is up. Go toPunkRadioCast.com
Category: Sights and Sounds
September 8th, 2009
Another Nod to Propagandhi for Album of the Year
Global Domination does a great review of Supporting Caste and has it in the early favs for album of the year.
Disclaimer: You’ll definitely need a thick skin for left-wing, “alternative” thinking with this, as it is as “socially conscious” as it gets. Not that I mind that, really, but to be honest, I don’t give a fuck about the band supporting “vegan lifestyles, animal rights campaigns and feminism, and hav[ing] described themselves as “Gay Positive”.
This side of the political scale, support whatever you want, if you produce intelligent music while doing so, I’ll probably be pretty much indifferent. I’d eat a giant fucken steak cut from an exploited, gay bull while listening to this album and wouldn’t even notice. Yep, I’m that cool. Or not. Which, if you check it out two and a half sentences earlier, in reverse of course means that Propagandhi have produced intelligent music on “Supporting caste”. And yes, I do even enjoy some of the lyrics. More of that, later on. Now this disclaimer turned into something else somehow, but let me add another thing: This is far from pure metal. If that’s a problem, here’s the door.
Good, but what exactly is it then, you might ask. I’ll tell you. The music these four smiling faces have produced on their latest effort is something like post-punk, semi-hardcore à la Rise Against with a couple of technical tricks and thrashy bits plus some parts (see “Incalculable effects”) that could be taken straight from a Mastodon album. And it’s actually enjoyable, I might add. Just to keep you reading. And because it’s the truth. So far, this is in fact among the best releases this year for me. I wrote “post-punk” and “semi-hardcore” because the overall sound is far from abrasive, as opposed to the more extreme ends of both genres manage to sound. The thing is, these guys could be on the radio if they wanted to be, as the guitars and vocals are very, very accessible – Yet, they use these means in a totally different way and instead produce great music. I dig that.
Instrument-wise, they know what they’re doing, with shredding (yes, shredding) guitars that have a thin, punkish sound, good bass-playing that could actually be a bit more prominent, and full-on drumming – I’ve actually even spotted a very short blastbeat part. From these ingredients one might suspect a rather generic mainstreamed “punk” album, but it’s not, it’s a lot more and a lot better than that.
Propagandhi combine catchiness and sense of melody, especially in the vocals, with complex riffs as well as song structures and lyrics that have obviously been written independently from the music and have been fitted onto it in a way that’s nothing short of awesome.
Dead Ron McLean, dear Coach’s Corner,
I’m writing in order for someone to explain to my niece the distinction between these mandatory pre-game group-rites of submission and the rallies at Nuremburg. Specifically the function the ritual serves in conjunction with what everybody knows is in the end a kids’ game…
Make something like that work in a song and actually manage to implement a goosebumps-inducing moment that still works after way over ten listens and you’ve made me a fan. Clearly these guys have been to a couple too many uni lectures, but who am I to judge them… If they are the sociology nerds they come across as, they’re probably better off having a band instead of hoping for a job anyway. Anyway, furthermore Propagandhi manage to break up their rhythmic patterns quite a bit so that the whole thing is far, far away from the almost radio-friendly impression a few randomly picked seconds might possibly, yet not necessarily, give you. Ah, the joys of randomness.
Negatives? The (few) intro samples on here don’t really cut it for me and they could’ve left out a song or two. And one more thing to all bands on this planet and beyond: Get rid of the fucken hidden tracks!! Apart from that though, I’m very impressed. Look, it’s not my fault. I grew up on The Offspring, and this is like a much more complex and mature version with a very slight metal-influence. And this is a mixture I can live with very well. Hang in there, metal scene, or this will be featured in my Best-Of-2009.
The earth will crumble.
Category: Propagandhi
September 8th, 2009
Sights & Sounds Interview
Subba Cultcha sat down with Adrian for a quick interview leading up to their UK dates this fall. Go to http://www.subba-cultcha.com/article_feature.php?id=6110 for the full interview.
Sights & Sounds is vocalist/guitarist Andrew Neufeld, drummer Joel Neufeld, bassist Matt Howes, and guitarist Adrian Mottram. Featuring members of notable bands such as Comeback Kid and Sick City, Sights & Sounds is comprised of a unique and talented group of musicians with a collective knack for creating music that is refreshing and interesting. Their debut full length album, Monolith, will be released in the UK on 7th September 2009 via Distort/United By Fate. Produced by Devin Townsend (Darkest Hour, Misery Signals, Bleeding Through), Monolith is a collection of intricate songs that straddles the line between sonically massive and a beautiful experiment in textured sounds. Citing bands such as Mew, Afghan Wigs, Foo Fighters, Sigur Ros and Smashing Pumpkins as influences, Sights & Sounds is able to create something that is as much music as it an incendiary celebration of life and friendship. “The inspiration for the songs comes from life experience, current events, literature, poems and from reflections on the human condition,” explains Adrian, who adds “The other guys in the band bring so many different creative elements to the table that the energy around us when we are together is both towering and vast.” Their acute dedication and musical capability is evident both in their live show and on Monolith, and these qualities are bringing Sights & Sounds to the attention of audiences worldwide.
How are you? Where does this Q&A find you? I’m doing very well thanks. Right now I’m in Vancouver BC (the west coast of Canada) just drinking some coffee.
How did the recording sessions for your new release go? The recording experience was phenomenal. It’s been about a year since we started recording and often I find myself reflecting on all of the information my brain was bombarded with, and immersed in during that time. I think everyone in the band has pulled some pieces of inspiration from the experience. We were very fortunate to have had worked with Devin Townsend on this record. He’s the kind of producer that has the insight and vision to bring a unique space to any band. He’s a genius but has since pulled back from producing bands and is currently working on a quad of albums of his own material to wrap up 2009. We were so very fortunate to have had the opportunity to have done Monolith with him.
What goals did you set yourself before you started recording? Did you do anything differently this time, on purpose? why? I’ve had a history of bashing heads with producers creatively and ethically. It was important to respect the idea that we needed really interesting atmospheres surrounding our music, knowing that Devin has a unique vision and gifted ability to achieve that in his own way. I knew I needed to be patient and have faith that he was going to do the right thing. It’s very easy to get attached to specific sounds in your head. A reality that keeps coming back is that certain guitar tones don’t actually exist! Or, there isn’t a budget to spend time with 15 really old guitar amps and 30 vintage guitars to find that tone, so you have to let go. I knew I needed to be patient and not be so attached to an “absolute” vision on how the material needed to sound. Some people are talented as technicians in the studio but they lack feel and don’t provide a good conduit to the creative process. One bad experience years ago taught me a tremendous amount about how close I am to the music, and it’s important to maintain a healthy perspective on the task at hand. That includes having the foresight on hiring the right engineers and producers that are the proper fit for the job. You can also scar somebody emotionally when they think they are doing a great job and you have to tell them it’s absolute shit. (None of this happened with Dev. I’m speaking of an entirely separate situation about 8 years ago.) Devin has definitely set the bar for Sights & Sounds, and for Rock and Roll. It was a pleasure working with him. We are so very thankful for his patience.
What do you feel are your own limitations when it comes to creating/writing music? For Monolith I was focusing most of my energy on the arrangements and performing my guitar parts with the right feel. Andrew has a particular talent in arrangements and I love watching him take an idea and run with it. Having the opportunity to work with him has really opened my eyes and ears. It’s really easy for me to write songs on my own with dense harmonic structure, making it fairly difficult for a second guitar player to fit in, and not sound like they are competing for space. Understanding Andrew and Matt’s abilities as writers, musicians, and players I knew I could space things out and not feel the need to fill in all the blanks before bringing it to the table. That was a huge exercise for me. I also get frustrated when I hear a huge piece of music ripping through my head and if I start to think about writing it out to early in the game, or I’m running to the computer to load up Pro Tools my focus has been known to drift, and the music begins to fade away then sometimes I’m running in circles with a melody line or riff. I would like to develop a 5.1 output jack on the side of my head that would allow me to record the music directly and accurately as I hear it. Also, when people call my phone when I’m writing or knock on my door and ask absolutely ridiculous questions, that breaks my concentration. I definitely need to cut the world off when I’m in writing mode.
Tell us 3 of your favourite songs from your career and the inspiration behind them? Let me stoke the memory a little bit… I’ll preface by stating that whenever I finish an album, or a song, or a project, it is important to step up my process with what I’ve recently learned and apply it to the next situation. It’s not that I devalue anything I’m a part of, but it’s important for the process to grow and mature and evolve into something bigger or more defined as I move through the years as a writer/performer. In a sense I always feels like I’m at the beginning. I would like to nurture that feeling to be a motivating factor in continuing to learn everything I possibly can.
So here we go.
1) There was a band I was in when I was 17, at that time I didn’t have clouded judgment or a fierce analytical approach to my writing (both of which later grew to destroy my creative side for a brief time). It was also my first experience I had with recording. I had just acquired a Roland VS1880 virtual 8 track and wanted to put it to use. The guys I was playing with were musicians I really looked up to and together we wrote some killer songs. I still feel like my guitar playing was at a certain peak then because I didn’t really care about anything else. I would come home from school and practice all night. I was also the youngest one in the band so at the time this motivated me to prove my worth to these guys and it definitely shows when I look back. In a way I built the archetypes that allowed me to have a starting place down the road. The song was called The Bazooka Drive-by and I still can’t play as fast as I did on that recording.
2) I played bass for years in a band called The Getaway. One song that remains in my top personal favorites is the track “Rescue me”. When it came down to writing the bridge I kept thinking “make it heavier, it needs to be darker and heavier” so we dropped the tuning and wrote a ripping mid section. During the recording session we had a really good friend of ours put a shred guitar solo over it. This was the first song for me where I felt like the darker side of my writing was colouring the project at hand.
3) A friend of mine visited me in the Rockies a few years ago. We ended up writing a really cool song in this empty mansion on the side of a mountain. It was the perfect place to make as much noise as we wanted and stay in the music. It’s cool to have acquaintances that are heavily involved in the creative process as well. It’s like you start to occupy a really comfy space outside your body. Every time I get a chance to hang out with Jon he shows me a really interesting twist to songwriting. I know I have the master tapes from that jam in a storage unit somewhere. He also recorded it as “The Jon Eddy Band” the song was “Downward Spiral”.
4) Naturally as Sights & Sounds entered my life. I found myself more respectful of the opportunity. Especially now holding my guitar once again. Being aware of everyone’s abilities - I knew how to write and direct ideas in a conducive way. I’ve had several incredible moments writing the material with Matt, Andrew, and Joel. To pick one out specifically…I’ll go with the song “Borderlines”. The initial inspiration for this song came from a desire to incorporate world influences into my music. On the demo I had a friend play didgeridoo in a bathtub to get a really big sound and from there I put acoustic guitar over the rest of the song, then added some ambient layers and some breathy background vocals. I wanted to convey the feeing of growth, and what often comes with growth is separation so by the end of the piece I wanted it to be big and spaced out. When Andrew came back with the direction he was going to take lyrically, I felt an abundant sense of synchronicity. It was a self affirming moment if I do say so myself.
What do you love and what do you hate about life on the road? Tell us your funniest tour experience yet? Touring is an incredible experience especially when certain aspects of life can seem so mundane and routine. I encourage random situations and experiences into my life. I never know who I’m going to meet, what I’m gong to see and hear, or where a conversation will take me. These experiences are what provide limitless inspiration to songwriting. An ongoing story for Sights & Sounds is trying to stay out of trouble, and this always leads us to more trouble somewhere else down the line. I’m not at liberty to divulge any tour stories at this time. So use your imagination and keep it to yourself.
What are the bands plans for the rest of the year? What exactly do you want to achieve with your band, now and in the future? We are about to start a very brief western Canadian tour before going to Europe. We start that tour in Portugal and go all the way through Spain, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Hungary and the UK. We are also booking another Canadian tour in the end of November into December. I think we are going to try and get to Australia and Japan and definitely do something in the US in the new year. We are always talking about adding some really cool visuals to the live show but when you have an opening or middle slot it’s often chaos enough to set up what we already have without pissing off the other tour managers and promoters. ha. How would you describe your own/bands sound, or what do you hate being labelled as? I think we are a Progressive, Psychedelic, Rock band. I’m not sure if we have been labelled as anything yet. We are still fairly new to the worlds ears.
Who is currently moving you musically at the moment? I’m on a heavy Tool kick. I really admire what they have to say and how they acknowledge and respect the intangible and unknown. A band like this who can go all the way with one extreme. It allows me to gain perspective with my point of view on where, and how I can direct specific ideas. I read recently that the singer really hates singing certain songs live for very personal reasons. I think if he hadn’t talked about these issues and chosen to avoid certain topics the songs wouldn’t be anything near what they became and wouldn’t have allowed the listener to connect to a very subtle feeling within the music. Perhaps it hurts to do it again, and again every night but apparently life is all about suffering so thanks for the wisdom. The composer Richard Struss (2001 Space Odyssey) is a favorite of mine. In his compositions for the film he was using certain production techniques that I am very connected to. The “Requiem” using mostly voices to create that uneasy tension paralleling with this sense of realization brings the “Rawness Of Life” to mind. I admire that ability in a composer.Anything Greg Dulli does is always a hit to me and the rest of the guys in the band. He was somebody who came along and stopped me in my tracks. He carries an elegant sense of mystique and evilness. He’s pretty bad ass and on a rough day he can make you feel pretty damn good about things.
What album changed your life and why? What ONE? That’s a brutal question to bring it all down to one single solitary album. As a guitar player? Paco De Lucia “Live In America”. Also the album he did with John McGlaughlin, and Al Di Melola. I was lucky enough to see him perform at Massy Hall in Toronto a number of times. He would just lay into the guitar and make it sing, and scream. It blew my mind. I remember going home and immediately trying to teach myself how to play guitar like him. Maybe one day I’ll learn flamenco properly on the streets of Madrid. I’ll throw in one more story. I can remember having dinner with my family when I was about 13 or 14. I was probably going on about guitars or drum sounds and I remember my Dad saying. “You want to hear something cool?” He put on Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon” and we listened to the whole thing. When the song “Money” came on he informed me that was 7/8 time. I now write a lot of material in 7. I have a story for pretty much every significant event in my life and it’s usually tied into music somehow.
If you could erase one single/album from history (your own or someone else’s) which would it be and why? NONE. All of them provide a relationship to one another. Without the worst albums written or recorded how would we truly appreciate the great ones? How would planets have any relation to stars? Or small fries to supersize?
Best piece of advice you’d give to aspiring musicians, or the best piece of advice you were given when you started? I have found that anything that ignites the imagination is an excellent way to gain an understanding of expression. It’s also important to practice your instrument. Not just practicing at home or in your room. Practice playing live, practice writing songs you really don’t like and turn them into songs you love. Understand that the instrument is a tool and it will become an extension of you. Eventually you will be able to express your ideas out as soon as they appear in your mind. Playing along to your favorite records is always a good exercise. The more you put into learning it the more you will get out of it.
If you’re in a car going at the speed of light, and someone turns the headlamps on, would they do anything? Well yes absolutely, I would be able to notify that I’m making a lane change
TOP 5 IPOD TUNES:
I’ll say this is for 2009.1. Vengeance - Tragedy (Very groovy and heavy). 2. Disruptor - Devin Townsend (It reminds me of a very important time in my recent career)3. Tool - Lateralus (A bar of 9, a bar of 8, and a bar of 7. What more could I say)4. Daniel Lanois - Two Worlds (What an awesome way to open a record)5. The Beatles - Because (It takes me out to lunch and picks up the tab) Thanks!You are very welcome!
26.10.09 UK Cardiff Barfly
27.10.09 UK Leeds Josephs Well
28.10.09 UK Brighton Engine Room
29.10.09 UK London Underworld
30.10.09 UK Nottingham Rock City
31.10.09 UK Plymouth White Rabbit
http://www.myspace.com/sightsandsounds
Category: Sights and Sounds
September 8th, 2009
Sights & Sounds Photos from Vancouver
Tommy Au took a bunch of pictures of Sights & Sounds at their recent Vancouver show. Go to http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommyauphoto/3895061081/in/set-72157604112749246/
Category: Sights and Sounds
September 4th, 2009
WGTS Review of Monolith
Another stellar review of the latest Sights and Sounds album.
FROM: http://www.wgtsmagazine.com/articles/read/196
REVIEWER: Travis Persaud
This is not the poppy, emo-tinged record most people would have expected after listening to Sights and Sounds’ debut EP two years ago. And thank goodness for that. The band’s first release, while enjoyable, didn’t really have that rip-off-your-shirt-and-run-down-the-street-in-excitement quality to it. They weren’t doomed, but simply set to become another marginal Canadian act that would endlessly tour the nation, dip into the States and call it quits after four years. Well, they absolutely demolished that image on Monolith.
“Sorrows” announces their arrival with a moody piano intro that transitions into group vocals sweetly singing “Sorrow,” as if a bittersweet farewell to the ghost of their first release. Andrew Neufeld (former Comeback Kid vocalist) bursts in with a restrained growl and then continues to showcase his huge range throughout all 14 tracks. “The Clutter” and “Pedal Against the Wind” are two beautiful tracks that highlight Neufeld’s voice.
There’s a serene passion that’s attached to Monolith, and it’s difficult to not get lost in power of the music. In the era of the single, iTunes and short attention spans, it’s not often when an album eclipses the hour mark and it doesn’t seem like it’s enough. This is one of the most surprising and enjoyable albums 2009 has produced – even if it didn’t have enough indie cred to crack the Polaris Prize long list.
Category: Sights and Sounds
