New Song
"Golden Youth"

Actor return with The Best Of, an album that trades the pastoral Americana of their previous releases for a set of crunchy, feedback-laden epics indebted to genre demarcations as varied as 1990s alternative rock, power pop, and contemporary alt-country. Earworm riffs delivered by careening guitars and impassioned, full-throated vocals hooks augment deceptively thorny arrangements and heartfelt lyricism; the album sounds like the band in a room, but glued together and rendered in glassy clarity by an expertly high-fidelity production.

New Song
"Searching For A Higher Love"

Long, swaying grass, the hoofbeats of horses, and infinite blue skies: this is the typical imagery that has long come to mind when someone brings up Americana. But for Toronto-based Nelson Sobral, when you inject Americana with a hard-edged, urban blast of gritty midwest blues, rock'n'roll, and northern soul, Americana adopts an entirely new identity, one of overpasses, subway trains, and the grit of city streets. 

New Song
"Tougher Than Tarzan"

Rewriting the rules of rock bands, Canadian band Jayniac Jr. is putting basslines and horn arrangements front and center instead of relying on the traditional guitar-driven formula.

New Song
"In Real Life"

Sparkle Blood is a no-nonsense power-trio featuring airtight songcraft delivered in the time-honoured guitar/bass/drums combo. Topped off with some of the most winsome harmony singing you’ll hear this year, their new album ZIP ZAP offers a succinct, melodic meditation on the world today: half outrage, half celebration, and all hooks.