Tebby & The Heavy - Heavy Afternoon
Self-released
Released on August 15th, 2025
The toughest part about starting this review is the syntax. Is it Tebby & The Heavy? Tebby And The Heavy? Depending what website you’re looking at, or what artwork, both options can be found. One of life’s mysteries, I suppose. I have a fondness for a nice “&” so I will stick with that. Regardless of what you call them, the Edmonton three-piece’s debut full-length Heavy Afternoon, needs no such deliberation - the album just straight up rips.
Tebby & The Heavy have been blasting eardrums with their driving, psych-tinged heavy shoegaze for a few years now. Since falling for them at Sled 2023, I’ve made a point of seeing them play whenever I had the chance, because, as you know if you’ve ever seen them, their show is a noisy, super fun time. So while I was a bit surprised to discover that this was their first full-length, I was also tickled to sit down and listen to a record that really captures the raw, pulsating, and zero-fucks-given energy of their live set. Written during the pandemic years, Tebby states that Heavy Afternoon came from a “place of disillusionment with the world, people and myself. The songs are the sound of trying to keep it together in the midst of all the noise.” By embracing and embodying some of that noise, Heavy Afternoon helps provide the sort of defiant catharsis their live shows are known for.
The guitar work takes centre stage on Heavy Afternoon, with tracks that are layered with heavy riffs, strident power chords, noisy effects, and many clear proofs of Tebby Curtis’ shredding prowess. The bass and drums lock into the grooves with vicegrip tenacity and an ability to settle into the pocket that provides a lush understory and place to land for the sweeping and at times chaotic guitars. The album is spacious and patient, allowing the songs to develop with a hypnotic ebb and flow. On top of it all, Tebby’s vocals are reverby and spectral, with deceptively simple lyrics that somehow fuse both cynicism and tenderness into the same line.
Although shoegaze is probably the most apt genre descriptor for Heavy Afternoon, it is also a bit incomplete. It is definitely gaze-y, for sure, but it’s also got a lot of other influences packed in by way of space rock, psychedelia, grunge, stoner rock, post punk, and other modifiers from the fuzzy end of the dial. There are also a number of decidedly surf guitar flourishes, which help lend some clear fresh edges to counterbalance the heavy grit. Like their live shows - big, fuzzed out, and cheerfully oblique, Heavy Afternoon is a perfect record to lose yourself in, and maybe find a bit of release along the way.
