Bulletproof Tiger are a ferocious beast of insanely tight instrumental post-rock. Their passion brought them from Windsor to Toronto to continue to chase their musical goals. Bulletproof Tiger isn’t (yet) a household name here in the Toronto music scene, but I’m not sure they ever gave a fuck about that. Continue reading
Here we go again! As usual, this year I started with an obscenely long list of albums and then whittled it down to twenty. Things got pretty cut-throat when it came to dropping bands off the list — it seriously hurt to cut Canadian artists like Fucked Up, Tasseomancy, Miracle Fortress, Timber Timbre, and Dream Jefferson off my list. The reason they all got dropped was due to a change in how I made my list: this time around I went to my Last.FM charts and used that as a guide. Once I had twenty of my most listened artists, I did a few small re-calculations and ended up with what you see below. Anyway, enough of all this babbling and on with the list: Continue reading
This Thursday night, my friends with the Indie Machine team up with excellent Toronto-by-way-of-London indie-rockers Hue to put on a “Hue-liday” spectacular. I like a good pun, but the real reason I am eager to write about this is because I believe Hue is up to something in a big way right about now. Continue reading
Filed under news, other, tour dates
I’ve often written, tweeted, and spoken about how bands might be able to get more compensation for their performances. Sometimes a paltry payout stems from a lack of promotion on part of the promoter, venue, or bands. Sometimes it’s thanks to less-than-smart show scheduling. There are a lot of potential reasons, really, and each show is somewhat different than the one before. But there is one reason for low pay that is particularly troubling: these days, everyone wants a free lunch. Continue reading
Filed under news, other, promoter's perspective
Toronto’s Tearjerker are the kind of band that I wouldn’t be surprised to see blow up in the coming months. Their brand new album Rare comes almost a full year after their LP Strangers, which received a ton of great press from outlets like Cokemachineglow and more. You might even remember when I happily stumbled upon that album through a series of seemingly unconnected events and loved it. I was so pleased with Strangers that I made it my business to keep up with the band from then on — which was easy to do with their Tumblr account. It was there that they released a remix album track by track, hyped up the new album with promotional videos and more. It’s safe to say that they’ve been on a steady rise, and the new album seems primed to finally push them over the top. Continue reading
This Wednesday, November 16th Glory Glory from Halifax return to the Rancho Relaxo with tour mates Wild Domestic from London. In fact, Glory Glory will be playing all over Eastern Canada and Ontario in the weeks to come as they go on a tour with Wild Domestic.
We’ve been playing host to the lads from Glory Glory for some time, but during Halifax Pop Explosion TWM went to see them on their home turf. What resulted was the hilarious interview embedded above, which culminated with yet another dip in the Atlantic Ocean — in the middle of October!
Filed under halifax pop, interviews, news, other
It has been a banner year for Cursed Arrows, not only did they release their Death Rattle Blues EP on cassette, and The Madness Of Crowds — the follow-up to 2009′s critically acclaimed LP Telepathic High Five — but now their brand new Skin Behind The Shroud EP is available digitally for free (it’s on cassette too for merely five dollars).
The six song EP finds Cursed Arrows mining some familiar (but still very potent) ground: their buzzsaw guitar-and-drum attacks still fuse together perfectly with bittersweet hooks and harmonies. That’s not to say they’re treading water though — they find time to bust out the drum machine on “One In The Blue” and some spoken word on “Close To The Exit”.
The 23 minute EP is a perfect encapsulation of their sound for newcomers and long-time fans alike, so check out the album stream below. If you’re digging what you hear, make sure to hit their Bandcamp page to purchase the cassette, download the MP3s or check out their other fantastic releases.
We’re all pretty big post-rock fans here at TWM, and for our money Old World Vulture are definitely one of Toronto’s brightest post-rock acts. Their self-titled EP was one of 2010′s highlights, and received critical acclaim across the board.
Now they’re back with a new digital single from their upcoming debut LP. The song is called “Trophy Lovers”, and sees the band pushing synths to the forefront and taking an even more atmospheric approach than we’ve heard from them in the past.
“After we released the EP, our song writing evolved in a more synth-based direction,” says drummer Jamie Hunter. “The new songs are more focused and intricate with a strong emphasis on melody, not just sheer volume and noise. ‘Trophy Lovers’ is a result from those writing sessions. We didn’t want to be confined to any one genre, and wanted our songs to fit well on a playlist that boasts as much Steely Dan as it does M83. But don’t get us wrong, at the end of the day we still want to be the loudest band in the room.”
These guys are totally a band to watch, as anyone who has witnessed their live show will tell you (check out this video we shot of OWV at NXNE 2010 if you don’t believe us). So without further ado, here’s the new single from “Trophy Lovers”:
Here at TWM we’ve been long time fans of The Schomberg Fair, so when the band releases new material it’s safe to say we all get very, very excited. Especially when the new material is as great as what we’ve been hearing off their brand new Mercy EP (out November 10th, release show @ Sneaky Dee’s).
So buckle up and check out our stream of “Oh Mercy”, which is a taste of what is to come for the Toronto band. They still walk that line between raw heaviness and pretty banjo playing perfectly, but take some great little left turns over the course of the song. You’re going to want to be at this release show! They also have a full-length record slated for some time in 2012, so consider this an appetizer for the main course.
I’ve been a fan of Toronto’s own Tearjerker ever since I stumbled upon their fantastic LP Strangers, and subsequently their album of remixes and covers called Strangers Remade. Most recently, they’ve released a new single “So Dead” off of their Strangers follow-up titled Rare.
The song doesn’t deviate too far from their established sound: a bright and catchy hook peaks through the slight fuzz and reverb of this shoegaze influenced track. To my ears it one sounds a little bit clearer than some of their previous songs — especially in the vocals which aren’t hiding as much as they used to. It comes packaged with the glacial b-side titled “Blood”, which features some vinyl-cracklings and distant keyboard/piano/lead-guitar flourishes.
I don’t understand why I haven’t been hearing more hype for this band, because so far everything they have put out has been utterly fantastic. This is a group who deserve much more buzz than they’ve been receiving from local music journalists/blogs… get your ears open to this band, Toronto!
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