FUCKED UP YEAR OF THE MONKEY TANKCRIMES As the second chapter in Fucked Up’s ambitious Grass Can Move Stones trilogy, Year of the Monkey uses a sprawling mythological framework to explore themes of identity, growth, purpose, and [...]
FIREBUG DUST AND ECHOES BUDDHA BELT RECORDS FireBug has been making music since 2017. The core of FireBug is Juliette Tworsey (lead vocal, guitar, slide guitar, piano, organ) and Jules Shapiro (lead guitar, synthesizer, bass). This EP, Dust and [...]
JALEN NGONDA DOCTRINE OF LOVE DAPTONE RECORDS Jalen Ngonda burst on the scene in 2023 with his debut album, Come Around And Love Me, and justifiably earned critical acclaim for his own style of soul music that owes a great deal of debt to Motown [...]
THROTTLE BODY M/C ALL THAT WAS GREEN MONKEY RECORDS Throttle Body M/C is really a project for Jerry Hammack, a well-known engineer, producer, writer, and musician. Hammack played all the instruments, produced, wrote, and engineered the album, so [...]
DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE I BUILT YOU A TOWER ANTI- RECORDS Indie rock veterans Death Cab for Cutie are back, more than 20 years removed from their iconic Transatlanticism release and are settling into the latter half of their career with I Built You [...]
MICHELE DUCCI SNAIL IN THE CLOUDS MONOTREME RECORDS Snail in the Clouds might be just the second solo album for Italian songwriter and vocalist Michele Ducci, but he comes to it with ample experience with M+A band and collaborations with his [...]
JOSY AND THE MIND READERS SIGH SOME MORE GOLD ROBOT RECORDS When you have in mind that what you have in front of you is a 5-song EP (formally a debut one at that) and that its full title is “sigh some more” (because it releases endorphins [...]
GINA LESLIE I LOVE YOU ALWAYS NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS INDEPENDENT Where would you choose to be as a singer songwriter if your music would fit within so many categories but having a strong connection to roots and Americana sounds? Well Nashville [...]
THE CLAUDETTES GARAGE GLAMOUR PRAVDA RECORDS Garage Glamour is the new album from the Chicago-based blues, rock, and pop band The Claudettes, and it is pretty incredible. This is the band’s sixth album, and their first with lead vocalist Rachel [...]
SKYDIGGERS WEST MONTROSE INDEPENDENT The new album from Skydiggers, West Montrose, is a collection of songs from albums past and old favourites, from Canada’s preeminent roots rock band. Presented simply and with a skeleton crew of the band on [...]
MODEST MOUSE AN ERASER AND A MAZE GLACIAL PACE/VIRGIN RECORDS “Genius might be the ability to say a profound thing in a simple way.” ~ Charles Bukowski It was the beginning of Summer 2000, and Portland’s Modest Mouse had recently released The [...]
AUGUST BURNS RED SEASON OF SURRENDER FEARLESS RECORDS For the past 20 years, August Burns Red has never concerned themselves with rewriting the soundscapes they helped bring to metalcore. As they have braved the changes in the genre’s [...]
BOARDS OF CANADA INFERNO WARP Boards of Canada have never come up short when it comes to tape-warped, ominous music, and 2026’s latest release, Inferno, may be their heaviest collection of tracks to date. This long-awaited fifth studio LP [...]
SHINEDOWN EI8HT ATLANTIC RECORDS Hard-hitting Florida rockers Shinedown have released their eighth studio album appropriately titled Ei8ht, and it packs just as much of a punch as over the past two decades with the band has. “Safe and Sound,” [...]
VIOLET GROHL BE SWEET TO ME AURORA RECORDS/REPUBLIC RECORDS Having sung backup vocals for Foo Fighters for nearly a decade, even making appearances on 2021’s Medicine at Midnight and 2023’s But Here We Are, Violet Grohl has emerged with her own [...]
PAUL McCARTNEY THE BOYS OF DUNGEON LANE MPL/UNIVERSAL It has been over five years since Paul McCartney’s last studio album, McCartney III, and McCartney has noted that during those years, he took his time with what became The Boys of Dungeon [...]
WIDEMOUTH NO GASOLINE URBAN SCANDAL RECORDS Chicago quartet Widemouth probably had other ideas (or maybe not?) when they named their debut album No Gasoline, but they somehow foresaw what is currently going on with it. At the same time, the [...]
PRIMULA NOTHING NEW FLAK RECORDS When somebody mentions that a certain indie band is including jazz elements within its music, the usual first impression is that of a few classic jazz elements brought into the usual pop or rock setting. Yet, the [...]
LEEROY STAGGER PILGRIMAGE CORDOVA BAY RECORDS So, is there a difference between Americana and Canadiana? Sure, musically, the two are like twins, but even with twins, there are visible (or in this case, audible) differences, and no matter how [...]
MAD IRIS MAD IRIS BA DA BING RECORDS Since 2024, Toronto’s Mad Iris has been releasing singles that play with a post-grunge meets shoegaze vibe. In the last year, the band has released three singles – “Daisy, Don’t Take My Baby,” “Poor [...]
THE ALARM TRANSFORMATION TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY RECORDINGS This is a rather difficult review, not because there is any question about the quality of the music in the package, but because this is Mike Peters’ farewell. I bought The Alarm’s [...]
DOUBLESPEAK DOUBLESPEAK LONDON RECORDS Doublespeak is a supergroup of three influential and much-loved electrobeat artists from the past 40 years. Neil Arthur (Blancmange, Fader), Vince Clarke (Yazoo, Depeche Mode, Erasure), and Benge [...]
J.C. THOMAZ AND THE MISSING SLIPPERS J.C. THOMAZ AND THE MISSING SLIPPERS SLOVENLY RECORDINGS From Rotterdam, NL, comes the gritty punk/post punk of J.C. Thomaz and The Missing Slippers. Reportedly this debut album was two decades in the making [...]
THE CRANBERRIES EVERYBODY ELSE IS DOING IT, SO WHY CAN’T WE? (33rd ANNIVERSARY EDITION) ISLAND RECORDS There’s something achingly beautiful and achingly sad about hearing these songs all over again on the 33rd (a peculiar choice, but perhaps [...]
