Kaeley Jade - The Great Unknown
I am inspired by Jade’s vulnerability as she explores the deepest parts of herself while also discussing the beauty of love. This record is timeless and relatable, conveying how music can change your life for the better. It is a reminder to live life one day at a time, and that the journey of self-growth is ongoing.
Masahiro Takahashi - In Another
Beautiful and occasionally unsettling, “In Another” is an album fit for any fans of the ambient, the jazzy, and the experimental.
The Talbot Trail Boys - S/T
With tongue firmly planted in cheek, Henry Adam Svec creates parallel Canadian universes, ones in which football players write love songs, AI-bots compose remarkable Canadiana, and rural families withhold secrets from a folklorist and song collector. In his many worlds, history melts into fantasy, tragedy melts into comedy, past melts into future, and music is the only constant. Maybe there’s a bigger metaphor there, but I won’t connect the dots, and neither will Henry.
Tired Cossack - ZIMA
In a sense, ZIMA is not simply a record about survival. It is the sound of survival in progress. In its kineticism, or perhaps because of it, ZIMA also bears a certain enduring persistence, running defiantly alongside its bleak underscoring. And what is survival if not persistence in the face of annihilation – of the self, or even, of reality itself?
Truster - Creeping Thing
Bringing an unapologetically raw and untamed energy, this hard-hitting album also brings with it a unique restrained softness, a dim light amidst the darkness, but as you approach the light rows of sharp teeth reveal themselves, waiting to swallow you whole. Accept your fate and allow yourself to be cast into the dark abyss of human emotion that is Truster’s Creeping Thing.
Broken Social Scene - Remember The Humans
As with every full-length BSS release, the album cannot be reduced to single songs – it’s meant to be experienced as an album, played front to back. The songs are connected to each other lyrically, musically, threaded together through a kind of sonic language that more than 20 years as a band, collective, and chosen family can share. I’m so glad they’re back.
Average Weekends - Beached Out
Beached Out brandishes their hard-earned wreaths and scars as they forge a path forward on Average Weekends, cautiously hopeful about a future that has invariably been shaped by the past, for better or worse.
Sea of Lettuce - Open Doors EP
There’s an uncertainty when presented with a band name like “Sea of Lettuce”; should I expect a mathcore alt-metal extravaganza? Avant garde prog-rock kids music? I can’t say I was surprised when I heard jangly, slacker-pop delivered with the airy precision of soft rock on the Open Doors EP released in April. These are sentimental songs grounded in strong songwriting and seriously tight playing.
Jody Glenham - Still Here
Jody Glenham's Still Here is dreamy and grounded, intimate and generous, moody and practical - it feels like a very honest expression from someone who embodies all these things herself. Jody Glenham is one of the hardest working people in Vancouver, and this EP is a gorgeous and lush culmination of both her labour and her love.
Witch Prophet - Words Are Spells, Thoughts Are Magic
I am empowered by Witch Prophet’s resilience and determination. It is a reminder that words matter, and although it is easy to feel down or second-guess yourself when times get tough, you need to remember that it is during these times that your words count the most.
Bug Swallow - S/T
Bug Swallow started in 2024 mostly as an excuse to hang out, make weird music with friends, and avoid taking themselves too seriously. You can hear that; no posturing, no forced coolness. Just people making fried, bugged-out egg-punk in the joy of each other’s company.
Angine de Poitrine - Vol.II
With music that makes you question the definition of the word, costumes that are sure to make anyone double-take, and a fan-base who lovingly refer to them as “Slipdot” or “humanity’s best chance at fighting AI”, Angine de Poitrine are here to stay, at least until they get booked to tour in a different galaxy.
Ora Cogan - Hard Hearted Woman
Cogan has been making music for 16 years now, and what a blessing it is to discover her music so late into her career. Hard Hearted Woman has made me a fan, and when I long for the day that I return to my home on the island, I’ll be sure to put the album on, close my eyes, and drift off to a different place.
Daniel Romano & The Outfit - Preservers of the Pearl
Only Daniel Romano could go from the spiky, almost Buzzcocks like “Phantasy” to the beautifully idiosyncratic waltz of “Abstract Stone” to the tender flinger-picking of “Secret of the Eye” to the country pastiche of “Metanoia” and have it all make perfect sense. With Preservers of the Pearl, The Outfit have added something wonderful to Romano’s wildly prolific and genre-splintering catalog.
Bibi Club - Amaro
Bibi Club's third studio album, Amaro, is full of unique sounds. Not simply the unique samples, techno beats, and poetic lyrics, but you can also hear the streets, clubs, and community of Montreal, the influences from a lifetime of loving music.
New Age Doom ft H.R. - Angels Against Angels
Having a bakers dozen of artists work together to create a work of art may be seen as “too many cooks” for some people, but for me it creates something that we have truly never heard before. With complete disregard of appealing to mainstream audiences, Angels Against Angels manages to create an album that can be both easy listening and an intense musical experience.
Tanya Tagaq - Saputjiji
Overall, Saputjiji continues to showcase the breadth and depth of what Tanya Tagaq can do with her music. The album embraces all variety of sounds, moods, tones, and demeanors as a way of orchestrating a critique of colonial capitalism and its imperial arm while also refusing to compromise the things worth protecting along the way — a reminder that to fight against such systematic issues is to fight for something.
Status/Non-Status - Big Changes
Big Changes builds on the sound that Sturgeon has cultivated for Status/Non-Status throughout their debut as Status/Non-Status in Warrior Down (2019) and its sophomore follow up in Surely Travel (2022). With an incredible cast of collaborators, the album shapes up to be a defining experience of what Status/Non-Status is for me. This maturity in the band’s sound coheres well with the thematic angle of the album, sitting tightly between its atmospheric moments of disillusion and its more awe-inspiring peaks.
Common Holly – They will draw halos around our heads
Following the acclaim of last year’s cerebral full-length Anything glass, Common Holly returns with a collection of songs unified by their austere manner and intimate production. Delivered late in winter, the EP They will draw halos around our heads contains gorgeously delicate performances and rich instrumentation, all while maintaining a fervent stillness.
Jo Passed - Away
Away is an incredible record. Each song stands on its own and seems like it could be a hit. As a whole, the album is even better, like Voltron or pizza. I feel like there will be a day where Joseph Hirabayashi’s name will be spoken in grand conversations of mythical songwriters and we will talk about Away as one of the great Canadian albums.