BLACK MOUNTAIN
In The Future
Jagjaguwar
When I hear Stephen McBean’s slowly-picked A-minor guitar intro for “Stormy High,” I’m almost tricked into thinking it’s a cover of “Hell’s Bells,” but then the swing-time Black...
Unfamiliar Records.
The scene has been hit by the sharp sounds of a new five piece: The Clips. The debut album Matterhorn is made of raw, electric energy mingling among melodies. Lyrically, the album is freeform, created strictly from wh...
Best of 2016: The Garage received a lot of blues CDs this year and all of them were above standard, but ultimately had to be judged for other reasons of personality, believability, skill and versatility, etc. Take a bow Michael Kaeshammer a...
CD REVIEW
The Bicycles’ Oh No, It’s Love is not the kind of record that warrants a large, wordy review filled with pretentious journalistic nit-picking. The fact of the matter is simple: Oh No, It’s Love is filled to the rim with h...
Let me preface this review by saying I’ve known Summer since she was barely out of her teens and coming out to sit in or jam at various venues I was playing at around Victoria BC. I’ve watched her career with great interest and she has ...
Derek Miller
The Dirty Looks
Arbor
I try to balance the good and bad in my reviews, even if I'm not into the style. I don't like saying it, but the sophomore album from Ontario's Derek Miller thoroughly sucks. It sounds like a bar band...
With her fifth album release on April 1 and Western Canadian tour dates throughout April, Orit Shimoni’s Bitter is the New Sweet opens up an exciting new chapter in the life of one Canada’s most brilliant and lyrically impactful vocalis...
The Japandroids are a two piece guitar wailing, drum pounding, singing machine, (do droids get angry when you call them machines?) and ‘Lullaby Death Jams’ is their recipe for a good time. It’s made up of five interestingly good track...
Bill Johnson contributes eight originals to his Still Blue, each one a fine example of a contemporary blues song, not merely a retread of a familiar 12 bar theme, and each sung in his evocative voice. The variety of approaches, from the sne...
Indie Rock Hall of Famers, Lowest Of The Low, celebrate new album release October 12 in Kingston with By Divine Right
Lay it On Me
Self-distributed
Waa-BOOM! With an album title ripped from frontman Ryan Hoben’s muscleman tattoos, indiefolkrocksters Minto punch it open with sludgy dirge, “New Bones” – formerly a chooglin’ alt-country number i...
New single by The Glorious Sons a catchy summer hummer.
Metal Blade Records
Bison is the most hyped band in Vancouver right now. Sometimes hype can be a tough thing to deal with, but these fuckers keep coming through every time. Every show is better than the next, so every album is obviously ...