Suzie Ungerleider, Empanadas Illegales, Dial Up, and WACK
Suzie Ungerleider - Among the Evergreens
Straight-up folk music is my most contentious genre. I believe it’s either great or it’s garbage. It’s never about the music, it’s about the stories. The music needs to be good but cannot take away from the lyrics and those lyrics better be enthralling. Because of this I believe folk can be the easiest genre to create while simultaneously being the hardest to make great. Suzie Ungerleider’s newest release comes close to greatness with stories that captivate your attention, none-better than “Cicadas” where Ungerleider describes a very adult relationship with a drug addict and then drops a bomb in the last line regarding her age at the time.
Empanadas IIegales - Sancocho Trifásico
Here I go… diving into a genre I know little about yet enjoy anytime I hear, and honestly, who wouldn’t? If tropical paradise doesn't come to mind when you listen to Empanadas Ilegales special brand of psychedelic cumbia and salsa music, well… you need to get out more. These fun Latin music vibes can be heard everywhere in pop culture and they are only ever associated with good times. In the case of this Vancouver act, they offer up enough different cheeky genre winks to keep you on your toes and avoid letting the groove fall into the background of a blissful sunny day.
Dial Up - Ball Pit
How does one describe an album as fried as the debut full length from Calgary’s Dial Up? It’s proggy, it’s punky, it’s psychedelic… really… it’s an acid fueled jaunt through a modern, way-too-fast-paced, society. It’s not for the faint of heart, sounds clash from all sides creating a wild amphetamine cacophony that can be hard to follow but if you sit down, do some deep listening, you’ll make sense out of the chaos. It’s an incredibly rewarding listen for those willing to get lost in the experience.
WACK - no one's watching
I’ll be the first to say it’s hard to pique my interest with funk-forward, dancey, indie-rock. Kudos to Vancouver’s WACK for grabbing me by the ears and not letting go until my head started bobbing and even these old white-man hips got the urge to shake. It was the frenetic drum solo that ends “Connected” moving seamlessly into the beat for the following song, “Heart in What? City”, that made my ears perk up upon first listen. They got my attention and more importantly kept it with an ultra-slick groove that avoids the all-too-common cheesy funk stench.
