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.
Gord Downie, The Sadies, And The Conquering Sun - Live at 6 O’Clock
It’s been almost nine years since we lost Gord Downie. For months, a nation mourned the loss of an ever-talented singer-songwriter, known for his improvisation and long-lasting beef with microphone stands. Despite this, his flamboyant stage presence and unmatched intensity lives on. This is seen in the newest concert album between Downie, The Sadies, And The Conquering Sun, Live At 6 O’Clock.
Cryptozoologists – Backwater Station
Backwater Station doesn’t offer escape, and it doesn’t particularly want to. What it offers instead is attention, unflinching, occasionally uncomfortable, but ultimately rewarding for those willing to meet it where it lives.
Dominique Fils-Aimé - My World Is the Sun
Through themes of spirituality and nature wrapped up in a neo-soul sound, My World Is The Sun retains the sultry brass and trance-like instrumentals of her previous work, but with a more down-tempo aesthetic.
l.n. baba - Onion
Listening to l.n. baba’s new album, Onion, feels like stepping into a world of your own. Trees are quiet in the wind, dogs open their mouths but don’t bark, and a far-off voice sings to you about things you hope to understand, like onions and tramlines. It’s a magical experience that’s made possible through uniquely excellent songwriting, idiosyncratic performances, and a sparse, yet effective production style.
Calvin Love - Throw My Shadow To The Sun
If you allow yourself to be swept away by the referential riffs, the sultry crooning, the smouldering aches and vague promises of this self-designed loverboy, you will no doubt be left panting (and possibly pants-less) and wanting more. Calvin Love is a true savant, who celebrates with grand indulgence to capture grand feeling.
Sunglaciers - Spiritual Content
At times pensive and ethereal, while at others brash and jagged, Spiritual Content builds on the band’s already strong oeuvre to create their most complex, conceptual album to date. Krauty as ever, but with the growing confidence to show their vulnerabilities, Sunglaciers invite the listener to join the steady march of progress - not as a walk of the plank, but as a dance down the hall.
Charlotte Cornfield - Hurts Like Hell
Hurts Like Hell is another shining example that Charlotte Cornfield is a national treasure. She can pen a love song to rival the greatest, and her peculiar eye for odd details makes her one of the most original songwriting voices working today. Cornfield’s foray into motherhood has gifted her with wisdom and a new, less self-focused perspective that comes through in her lyrics. This doesn’t make her come across as pretentious or dogmatic, though, and she still impresses upon the listener that she’s one of us. She is still tumbling through life, feeling all the bruises that are left behind. She is still hurting like hell, but these songs offer a resilient hope for the future.
cootie catcher - Something We All Got
Something We All Got is an album that has a cinematic ambiance to it. I am not saying this is quite an atmospheric soundtrack, but that it captures those moments of life that you just want to get a snapshot of. It feels like cootie catch achieved exactly what they set themselves out to do, by creating the sharper edges of their rough-around-the-edges sound.
femtanyl - MAN BITES DOG
Listening to femtanyl feels like a rush of aggro movement. Abrasive and thriving in all of its intensity, femtanyl is the Toronto digital hardcore act by Noelle Stockwood, now joined by multi-instrumentalist Juno Callender.
blosum - Amaryllis
In its heart, Amaryllis feels like a remedy for unresolved heartbreak; a letter to a former lover, an old friend, somebody you wished was still there but isn’t. The sense of incompleteness portrayed in both the sense of the lo-fi, DIY recording style and lyrical themes of the album work in the band’s favour as it reinforces the themes of loss, change, and the uneasy clarity that can come with both.