The Japandroids are a two piece guitar wailing, drum pounding, singing machine, (do droids get angry when you call them machines?) and ‘Lullaby Death Jams’ is their recipe for a good time. It’s made up of five interestingly good track...
Lay it On Me
Self-distributed
Waa-BOOM! With an album title ripped from frontman Ryan Hoben’s muscleman tattoos, indiefolkrocksters Minto punch it open with sludgy dirge, “New Bones” – formerly a chooglin’ alt-country number i...
Soprano’s Bar, Victoria’s only live karaoke joint and notorious dive bar, has closed its doors for good, going out with a bang on New Year’s Eve.
A message posted on the bar’s Facebook page on Dec. 31 served as the official annou...
Montreal’s own Eternal Husbands have released their third album French Exit.
Within, the band has once again merged the ambiguous genres of pop, noise and shoegaze, resulting in their best work to date.
French Exit features soothing...
Cracker
Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey
429 Records
Since the early 1990s, and most famously with 1993’s platinum selling Kerosene Hat, Cracker has been providing an interesting take on contemporary alternative country (think ...
Bill Johnson contributes eight originals to his Still Blue, each one a fine example of a contemporary blues song, not merely a retread of a familiar 12 bar theme, and each sung in his evocative voice. The variety of approaches, from the sne...
Cadence Weapon
Afterparty Babies
Big Dada
4/5
Canada doesn't produce a whole lot of hip-hop in general, let alone the sterile mall haven of Edmonton. As such, the sophomore album from Rollie Pemberton (aka Cadence Weapon) is going to ...
Best of 2016: The Garage received a lot of blues CDs this year and all of them were above standard, but ultimately had to be judged for other reasons of personality, believability, skill and versatility, etc. Take a bow Michael Kaeshammer a...
Black Wizard
s/t
Vancouver's music scene seems to be traditionally known for two things: drugs and hard rock. Despite the critical pitfalls of these influences, the city has a habit of inexplicably turning out the most palatable and au...