This week’s Midweek Music Mix features music by Dad Patrol, Noble Daughter, Zach Pelletier and Digital Circus.
Matt Carter
Dad Patrol – Yellow Phase Live
Dad Patrol offer up five live tracks on their latest release, Yellow Phase Live. As the title suggests, all five of these tracks appeared in their original form as part of the band’s most recent full-length, Yellow Phase, released in September of last year. While live albums can have a reputation for acting as “filler” to appease an audience between studio recordings, that’s definitely not the case here, with this release arriving just a few months after its predecessor. In this case, Yellow Phase Live, simply represents a band eager to get themselves out in front of a live audience.
On this recording the band appear to be in fine form, translating a few of their latest songs with the help of new members Evan Richard (rhythm guitar) and Luka Malatestinic (bass) who help founding members Gregor Dobson, Jonathan Marino and Zachary Pelletier shift their compositions from home studio to home stage. Unfortunately, while New Brunswick continues to flicker between its own series of colourful phases, it remains uncertain where or when we’ll get to hear these songs in-person. Looking forward to the day.
Noble Daughter – Noble Daughter
Noble Daughter is the latest in a resurgence of bands inspired by the melting pot of mid-era 90s rock. Part nostalgia – part reinvention, the band’s self-titled debut album offers a window into the sounds that defined an era, played with infectious enthusiasm and subtle humour. The simplicity of grunge rock mixed with the reverberating guitar and synth tones of effects-laden arena rock echo throughout the album’s nine songs to create an entry point familiar to listeners of a certain vintage, but certainly not at all limited to Gen-X’s final wave.
Zach Pelletier – Relax, Man
Zach Pelletier’s Relax, Man is largely a work of sound collage that ties together a range of sampled and found sounds placed above a collection of simple melodies and Garage Band rhythms. The album’s twelve tracks range from the fully formed to the conceptual. In a way, it’s almost like listening to one of those curated Spotify playlists designed to enhance “focus” or “creativity”. Pelletier describes the project as a collection of songs he worked on during 2020 to relax whenever he was stressed out. “They’re just these short musical ideas I explored for fun,” he says. At times, Relax, Man comes across like a trash bin of deleted ideas, and at other points his intentions are clear. Largely a series of experiments, Relax, Man is both vague and enjoyable, and I think that’s the point.
Digital Circus – The New Circus: Demo
Digital Circus’ Facebook page describes the band, in part, as being, “your friendly neighbourhood electro-rock band,” but the group’s latest three song EP says anything but. While that moniker may have been appropriate for describing the band’s February 2020 debut EP, Thoughts, with its highly energetic drumming and a dominant lead guitar that carried forward above a textured mix of layered synths and manipulated vocal lines, this latest release finds Digital Circus working within a whole new set of parameters. The acoustic drums have been replaced with programmed patterns and the guitar seems to have gotten the axe completely. As the title suggests, this is definitely a new version of the band, and one that seems to have parted ways its previous electro-rock identity in favour of a more indietronica direction. It works. It works really well. Same Bat-Time, different Bat-Channel.
Send us your Music!
If you are a New Brunswick artist or group, have new music on the way and would like to be considered for a future edition of Midweek Music Mix, send us the details at gridcitymagazine(at)gmail.com
