Halifax is probably one of my favorite music scenes in Canada. Not only is it home to one of my all time favorite bands, North of America, it is also a hotbed of fantastic angular, weird poppy indie rock. Some amazing bands like Special Noise, Tomcat Combat, A History Of, The Holy Shroud, and The Medium Mood have come out of this scene. Halifax bands have the noisy mid 90's indie rock that was pioneered by bands like Pavement and Archers of Loaf on lock. I don't know what it is about that town...strange. (Reminds me...I always wanted to start a Punk Rock Geography blog, focusing on certain North American scenes, and their distinct sound...Chicago emo anyone?)York Redoubt is a fantastic new(ish) band from Halifax featuring members of Tomcat Combat (Killer post rock band...check them out). On "Cheap Funerals" their debut tape (I think) they play really awesome fuzzed out pop music, with a heavy 60's rock influence, which is apparent on the last track, "Backyard Garden" which starts off with a strange, angular bass driven riff, but breaks into a soaring chorus that would not be out of place in a Beatles or Zombies song. Other songs like "I Want To Die" explode out of the gate with some heavy Weezer-esque riffage buried under layers of fuzz, distortion and noise. Seriously, this is not the style of music I normally dig, but York Redoubt does it so honestly and well that it's hard not to love these 4 songs.
Bart Records has a few in the distro, so next time you see Mr. Stebner, grab this. It's definitely a gem of Canadian indie rock, one I can see becoming a fairly sought after collectors item if the band continues on the path they're on right now. York Redoubt also just released a full length 12" limited to 100 copies, so head over to Hot Money Records to snag a copy ASAP.
~AB
No comments:
Post a Comment