This week we look at the latest releases from The Trick, Dash Talk and The Surge.
Matt Carter
The Trick – Your Wildest Daydreams
It’s hard to believe it’s been five years since The Trick debuted new music performed for the first time by a full ensemble of musicians. Fearsome Places introduced a new face to what began as a solo project by Fredericton musician Patrick Reinartz. While Reinartz has always been at the helm of this project, 2015’s Fearsome Places and The Avalanche EP which arrived the year after, offered him a new approach to presenting and interpreting his work.
Your Wildest Dreams, Reinartz’ latest release as The Trick, is a return to form and the first new music he has written, performed, recorded and released entirely on his own since 2012’s You Find It In Others.
The hiatus has done him well. His approach to both the tone of his synths and the arrangement he’s chosen to carry this song forward bring a new level of complexity to his writing and the overall production on this track.
Your Wildest Dreams is pop at its most minimal, and Reinartz at his best.
Dash Talk – Dash Talk
I was only eighteen seconds into this debut EP from Saint John’s Dash Talk when my curiosity spiked. It was the introductory riff for the opening track Dirty Looks and its quick and unexpected shift into the song’s first verse that caught my attention. What just happened? Sometimes when I hear similar structural nuances – changes in timing that are both awkward and engaging – I wonder if they were intentional or just a result of poor interband communication. A happy accident. That said, the delivery here was executed with all three musicians following through in unison. I deemed it deliberate and clever and so, eighteen seconds in, I was all ears.
I’m a sucker for the type of low-fi, basement, shoegaze inspired rock music Dash Talk are exploring. And I especially appreciate it when it’s delivered in the rough-around-the-edges recording style presented here. It’s a sound that speaks of no budget and limited experience, but also the admirable attitude of, “let’s just do this.” There’s a nostalgia to it all that makes me think of Eric’s Trip or any handful of 90s indie bands that just went for it, recording however they could just to get their songs out there and heard. That drive defined a movement.
And speaking of definition, Dash Talk’s self-titled debut is sonically consistent, front to back. They sound like a band who know what they’re trying to accomplish, on a musical level at least. Believe it or not, that’s not always the case, especially on a home recorded debut release by three guys who, judging by their band photo, may or may not be old enough to legally buy beer. Thank you Dash Talk. Keep making music would ya? I want to see where this goes.
The Surge – C4PEP
The Surge tell it like it is. “Three grown men who cannot let rock die.” And why should they? We need a little dirty punk rock and roll humming in the background (basically all the time) just to remind us that it’s OK to break from the straight-and-narrow every now and then. In many ways, that’s exactly what The Surge are doing here on this, their debut EP.
For the most part, this Saint John trio are holding things steadily between the lines on the Great Punk Rock Highway. They don’t appear to be trying to challenge the form in any major way. But, what sets this release apart from releases by other bands who seem completely fine just playing faceless riffs from their genre of choice, The Surge have managed to add something slightly unique to each of the five tracks on this release.
For starters, they open their debut with a new addition to the Computers 4 Ponx archive, a somewhat phenomenal project in its own right. It’s 29 seconds long but serves to introduce the band as one with experience. It’s 29 seconds that tells us these three musicians have been in many bands before they formed The Surge. And we’re off…From the super slick breakdown in Drinking 7 Days A Week, and it’s development into our very own homegrown, booze-driven punk anthem a la TV Party, to the unexpected leads and clever stops that pop up throughout, C4PEP is as close to a Saint John classic as anyone could hope to come, straight out of the gate.
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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
