Music Reviews

Jaimie Vernon

The Soles
Broken Ghost EP
Independent

Once upon a time alternative rock was an actual counter-culture that wasn’t a genre bands aspired to just so they could fit a radio format. It was an underground cottage industry created by College radio in response to the bloated corporate pop and rock radio playlists owned and controlled by major record labels.
Back then record companies weren’t looking for cutting edge, genre bending guitar bands; they waited for College and University radio stations to find them first. When critical mass started turning airplay into record sales and indie record shops began selling out vanity vinyl pressings made in someone’s basement, alternative rock turned into an industry.  The progenitors of the early movement, out of no fault of their own, were R.E.M., Hüsker Dü, The Replacements and Sonic Youth. However, with the exception of R.E.M., labels soon found that underground popularity doesn’t necessarily translate into commercial success and they abandoned the ‘project’ almost as quickly as it began, to go back to their formula of slick, groomed, manufactured pop rock.

Jaimie Vernon

EMMA-LEE: Backseat Heroine
eONE Music

Backseat Heroine is the sophomore release by Toronto’s Emma-Lee and by all accounts is a major departure from her 2008 debut Never Just A Dream that was a decidedly jazz-pop record that hinted at alt-country and blues. 
 
Backseat Heroine is a different beast altogether. The jazz elements have been abandoned (with the exception of the crooner “Bring Back Your Love”) and the alt-country gets a little more face time. “Not Coming By” recalls The Cowboy Junkies’ Margo Timmins in its quiet passages but those don’t last long as the song turns into a rollicking competitor for Blue Rodeo’s less somnambulistic ‘rockers’.

Maple Music

Here’s an item that’s everything the Internet buzz says it is. Part She & Him romantic, part jagged little thrills, Voyageur is a whole other trip for Edwards. As in roller-coaster ride of breaking up, breaking out, new love and reaching for far horizons.

The reigning redhead queen of Canuck country/roots rock came at this album fresh from the break-up of her five-year marriage to guitarist Colin Cripps, which may or may not have triggered a period of intense soul-searching and creative reassessment.

This could easily have set up as the ‘divorce’ album but Justin ‘Bon Iver’ Vernon’s involvement in the project changed all that. The Grammy-nominated, high-voiced neo-folk singer/songwriter initially came on board as a writer/producer but his involvement with all aspects of the album as well as with Edwards deepened considerably.

Listed as co-producer Vernon’s influence is all over the project; stylistically, lyrically and in the production approach. Given that he was working with the usual folk/roots instrumentation, Vernon did a great job of keeping the essence of Edwards’ music intact while bringing other dimensions into the picture. The result is a very good thing indeed and those dimensions make it possible for Edwards to stretch her vocals into surprising and rewarding areas. Check how tall she stands dueting with Norah Jones on album closer ‘For The Record’.

Independent

This Halifax trio comes with a heavy East Coaster street rep built on the solid work of singer/guitarist KC Spidle, ex-of Dog Day and it does not disappoint. The lineup’s completed by Evan Cardwell on bass and the mighty Meg Yoshida on drums. Put ‘em all together and they conjure up the kind of baleful noise you’d expect from a band called Bad Vibrations. Y’know, the grinding, deathcore guitars, rib shaking bass and massive drum assaults.

There’s all that and there’s something else going here, namely a ripping homage to early speed metal and the NY punk scene from which it derived. This is a sinister, heartfelt, swerve driving sound, outtakes from a time-warped, meth-fuelled mashup involving Anthrax and The Ramones

Buckle in and brace yourself because there will no soft entries here and precious little downtime.  Opening track ‘Losing Time’’s brief intro and headlong plunge is a good indicator of what you’re in for, given that most tracks  clock in between two and three minutes. With the notable exception of  “Growing”, a showcase  of raw axe power from Spidle coming in just under the two-minute mark.

Come for the dense death metal, stay for the burning speedcore.

James Lizzard