Vancouver punk/trash rockers Crystal Swells have released a new and brilliantly titled EP: Goathe Head Soup. You can check it out on their bandcamp. I appreciate the reference even more now after watching the movie Goethe! on the plane coming back from Israel. Enjoyable movie, very lighthearted except for the stuff with dudes killing themselves over girls they met in the street and then fell in love with like two days later.

Also, what’s the deal with all the punk/trash rock being created in Canada these days? There are scenes in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal and Calgary. Is it cuz we’ve had a Conservative government for like a bajillion years now? Are we going to start seeing Harper posters and album covers like the Reagan hardcore stuff from 80s?

Crystal Swells – Patent Trolls

Woozy Portland-based pop/punk/70s hitmaker lo-fi rockers Unknown Mortal Orchestra are getting a lot of press these days. And they deserve it cuz they’re a sick band. Can’t wait for the album dropping June 21st on Fat Possum.

So, this week I was listening a lot to one little Toronto band that put out a very solid cassette EP and is currently working on an album. They are called…

RITUALS!!!

Not sure why I was crazy about them this week but I was, they just have a killer sound and I was in the mood for it. They’re this dark, grimey, trash-rock band, but underneath the noise (oh the noise) they’ve got some pretty badass pop hooks. They make the kind of edge-y, awesome music that Toronto needs more of, the kind of shit that makes Brooklyn and even L.A. so much more exciting. This city needs to stop fucking around with the semi-mainstream-y indie rock it’s been fostering for the last couple years or at least not completely focus its attention on it; it’s making us look kind of lame to the rest of the world. We need the real deal, people. And Rituals be the real deal.

But it would appear that Rituals is part of a little movement gaining subtle momentum in Toronto, one that includes bands like Mausoleum, Portraits and Odonis Odonis, and numerous others, as well as labels like Buzz Records. These guys are mixing post-punk, shoegaze, experimental and gutter rock to create something distinctive and sexy as fuck. They’re playing cool little shows at The Garage and they tend to look really cool. Very few people really know about it and it would appear the outside world – even cool blogs that have caught onto Foxes In Fiction, Memoryhouse, and other cooler indie-rock representatives of our city – have yet to catch wind of it. Nor is there really any ‘scene’ quite yet, just a bunch of cool bands making cool music and playing shows with eachother here and there.

Alright, so you’re reading this right now right? Go and listen to all the bands above and definitely check out the stuff on Rituals‘ bandcamp, and come out to the shows. You can thank me there.

Fuzzy, colorful, poppy, messy. I like it. And it belongs to Indianapolis garage-rockers The Kemps. I heard they’ve got a full length coming out at the end of July.

Niiiiiiice. LA synthwaver Physics puts the groove into extra-smooth mode. Another nice entry on the excellent AMDISCS label. (Via Rose Quartz)

More Toronto rock coming at ya. This time it’s Big Crimes, a band that crosses a couple boundaries. I’m not exactly sure how to categorize them: it’s rock that can swing between hard and weird and beautiful and poppy and synthy and somehow still make sense of things.

Never knew Tom Dunbar was such a tenor until I heard this song (he’s one of the dudes in weird face paint or something towards the end of the video, the one with the mustache). You can download their damn-good new album Balsam Lake off mediafire, they’ve posted the link on their Facebook page.

Big Crimes – Better

Three cute girls from Toronto that make really dark, scary, very cool music. That’s how I would describe Huckleberry Friends. The song below, “Vision”, is available from Pleasence Records on 7″.

Huckleberry Friends – Vision

The Smiths are one of those bands that continue to charm, console and amaze kids all over the world. There’s no band quite like them in the history of rock, and even though they kind of get lumped into the British post-punk movement of the 80s – with their moody melodies, chorus-laden guitars, and synth pads – Morrissey’s hyper-literate, romantic masochistic lyrics and stage persona set them worlds apart from their peers, as well as, many would say, head and shoulders above them.

Toronto’s The Holiday Crowd owe a considerable debt to the Manchester quartet. In the track below, “Penny’s Found”, the guitars, vocals, lyrics and production all make that abundantly clear. But to be able to nail that sound and feel so closely while still retaining it’s soul and vibrancy is an achievement in itself. And also just really enjoyable.

The Holiday Crowd – Penny’s Found

Tonight, scuzzy post-punk/shoegaze Toronto band Portraits are playing a digital EP release show at Tiger Bar with Odonis Odonis, Hellaluya and Sexy Merlin. Should be a kick-ass show, and they’ve put together a kick-ass mix of shoegaze, punk and post-punk from the last four decades to both soundtrack and celebrate the night.

1. The Buzzcocks – Orgasm Addict
2. Odonis Odonis – Blood Feast
3. Lowlife – Eternity Road
4. Felt – Cathedral
5. Secret Shine – Loveblind
6. The Jesus And Mary Chain – Never Understand
7. No Joy – Heedless
8. My Bloody Valentine – Want
9. The Cure – All Cats Are Grey
10. Dirty Beaches – Sweet 17
11. Girls – Carolina
12. Sonic Youth – Kissability
13. Young Prisms – Breathless
14. The Smiths – The Headmaster Ritual
15. Tamaryn- Love Fade
16. Atlas Sound – Bite Marks
17. Slowdive – Blue Skied An’ Clear

Download

San Diego-West London band Psychic Dancehall deliver a charming killer of a track with “A Love That Kills”. The structure is mid-60s pop but the aesthetic in late 70s/early 80s minimal synth-wave. Really, really cool. The 7″ is available from Art Fag (Via Rose Quartz)

Psychic Dancehall – A Love That Kills