Listen closely to “You Will Be Fine (And Other Lies),” the latest single from Kingston, ON quirk-rocker Five.X.Five. What sounds to the idle ear like a jaunty, upbeat anthem is actually something closer to what its sardonic title suggests: a wry, vaguely surreal, sometimes even horrific portrait of life under watchful eyes.
Like a guided missile flying not over but straight into the proverbial cuckoo’s nest, the irresistibly immediate track rockets us into the dark heart of an unspecified institution where there’s “No TV allowed in the breakfast room” and “You stare at the wall like a friend.” Amid the enforced quiet, the only noise comes from the nameless authorities who “shout the punishment/ For mounting your own defence.”
The jubilant pop-punk of the track is energizing and triumphant, the lyrical sentiments less so. Or are they?
“‘You Will Be Fine’ is about defiance and survival,” explains the brainy, beguiling Five.X.Five, who’s known in his daily life as Matej Novak. “It’s about advocating for and relying on yourself because the systems put in place to help can also be used to take advantage of you. It’s about realizing that everything ends, and you have to make the best of the time you have.”
The first single from his simultaneously released debut album, Grackle, “You Will Be Fine” vindicates Novak’s love for ’90s indie/alternative sounds. It’s a two-and-a-half-minute blast of California-style jackhammer action that belies his actual background as a child of Prague and a current resident of Kingston. But that geographical life’s path isn’t the only unconventional thing about his CV. The epitome of a late bloomer, Novak didn’t start recording as Five.X.Five—or under any name, really—until 30 years after he first picked up a guitar. Instead, he pursued a more traditional path of school, career and family—until one day, on a whim, he reached out via TikTok to longstanding hero Billy the Kid for singing and songwriting lessons. What ensued was a wholly unexpected writing and recording partnership that yielded several rafts of singles, including “If the Water” and “Fireflies, Forever.”
Their collaboration reaches its culmination in Grackle, an 11-song, two-years-in-the-making opus that’s brimming with instantly indelible hooks and riffs. The music embellishes Novak’s ’90s fixation with garnishes of post-Britpop Britrock, New Wave and shoegaze. Unlike “You Will Be Fine,” some of the numbers are explicitly autobiographical: “Weak Without Your Blessing” is about one of Novak’s earliest memories, “VHS Tapes in the Mail” is about living in Prague in the early aughts, and “wordswordswords” is about “craving from someone what they can’t provide,” he says, cryptically.
Billy co-produced with Jesse Gander at the latter’s Rain City Recorders studio in Vancouver, as well as contributing harmonies, keys and guitars. The rhythm section was borrowed from alt-pop band Hyaenas, with Sophie Foster providing bass and violin and Jen Foster handling drums and percussion.
But throughout, the focus remains firmly on Novak—excuse us, Five.X.Five—and his idiosyncratic, off-kilter yet thoroughly relatable way of making sense of the world.
“If there’s a common thread running through the album,” he says, “it’s the lengths we go to tolerate our circumstances—out of self-preservation or as a tool of self-improvement. We’ve all been through it the last several years. These 11 tracks are meant to help everyone feel less alone.”
And that’s the kind of gift you don’t mind waiting 30 years for. Put on Grackle and know you’ll be fine—for real this time.
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