SOUND BITES

Song of the Year Nominees November 2 - 30 New Artist, Solo, Comeback, Canadian, Heavy Nominees December 7 Album of the Year Nominees December 14 Awards Announcements December 21 As the weather turns cooler and the clocks get set to go back, thoughts of the dreaded winter to come start to materialize. Well, that, and Year in Rock. As an annual rundown of what happened in rock music, Year in Rock is one of my proudest traditions. From its initial inception as a double CD compilation I'd make for my friends to its current incarnation on this blog, Year in Rock has been my way of recapping rock's history, one year at a time, since 2000. Over the past fifteen years a lot of trends have come and gone, so many bands have formed and run their course, and the state of the music business itself has changed in dramatic ways. Likewise, the way I present Year in Rock has changed; from a kickass mix CD to painstakingly writing out the recaps here, Year in Rock ha...

With 2013's Acknowledge, Acknowledge , The Motorleague made good on years of hard work and heavy touring with an energetic, punk-leaning record with a few surprises; splashes of acoustic east coast flavour ( Oh, How the Mighty Have Fallen ), groove-heavy rock ( We Are All Going Directly to Hell ), and even a little indie rock ( Burned in Effigy ) found their way into the core sound of the record. However, for me it was the incendiary post-grunge screamer Failsafes that hit hardest; given a few spins, that song stuck out from the pack thanks to its intensity and its catchiness in equal measure. More than any other song on that record, Failsafes married melody and force in a way that made it a clear favourite of mine, for not just the album but indeed the year itself. Having earned a higher national profile thanks to Canadian major distribution and more hard miles on the road, The Motorleague went into Holding Patterns sessions with a higher profile producer in Eric Ratz (the man...

The list of current bands who have made careers out of grand, conceptual storytelling is very small, and Coheed and Cambria arguably sits atop the heap in terms of overall commitment and success. Over the course of their previous six albums (I count 2012/2013's Afterman double shot as one), they dedicated their craft to the telling of The Amory Wars , an incredibly complex narrative that only the most ardent fans have sought out understanding of. Some of those fans were apprehensive about The Color Before the Sun , the first Coheed and Cambria record to step away from the main saga and instead showcase a more personal side of Claudio Sanchez lyrically. It may be perceived as a risky move, but in actuality it turns out pretty much the opposite. By focusing on the songs and not the story, there's a far more inclusive hue to The Color Before the Sun . Sure, it's risky in the sense that the band have taken a breather from the story that's driven their entire career, but...

Sometimes, when reviewing an album, you have to take your time. Usually, I can form a pretty solid opinion on a record given two or three spins, and within a few hours of the music meeting my ears for the first time, you're reading my thoughts on it. Not the case with Clutch, whose formidable discography and consistent quality demand the increased scrutiny that comes along with increased respect. Given a steady diet of Psychic Warfare over the course of a week and a half, I'm happy to be just getting around to this now; had I published a review a week earlier, I may have offered a version of the review that felt incomplete. That review would have also been less favorable; my knee jerk reaction to the album was that it offered a bit too much in the way of repetition in comparison to 2013's Earth Rocker . Not to say it outright cribs from any kind of formula (and really, to accuse Clutch of adhering to a formula is a fool's errand), but a few moments on Psychic Warfa...

  Considering how long her star has been rising, it's kind of a headscratcher that Meg Myers is just releasing her debut album now; depending on how much street cred you have in the vault, you may have been talking about her for over three years (she posted her first video, the hipster-ridiculing Tennessee , to YouTube in May 2012). Of course, heads really started to turn last year when she released her second EP Make a Shadow ; in addition to holding fans over for her full length debut, it spawned a moderate hit in Desire . Three of Make a Shadow 's five songs are included on Sorry , though curiously Go and Heart Heart Head didn't make the cut despite also being singles (and my two personal favourites from the EP). This leaves seven "new" songs for the LP, three of which saw release leading up to the album. The title track is one of Myers' most blatantly pop-leaning singles to date, though it still manages to strike a powerful chord. Lemon Eyes , meanwhile...

Since rising through the indie ranks close to a decade ago with their debut Carnavas (and, more to the point, its epic and intense hit Lazy Eye ), Silversun Pickups have made it a point to strafe away from comparisons to a certain '90s alt-rock band that also carries the initials S.P. On their last album with Dangerbird Records, the dark and layered Neck of the Woods in 2012, they brought new wave influences on board. While guitars still roared and songs still had a flair for the intense, keyboards were starting to take on a larger role. It seemed that SSPU wanted nothing more than to shake those pesky comparisons aside and be recognized as their own band. Now that they've started their own label, it's not all that surprising that fourth album Better Nature dives deeper into that electronic sea of sound; put plainly, if you thought Neck of the Woods was a departure from their rock roots, you haven't learned the true meaning of the word departure. Guitars still have ...

By now, any lingering sadness that resulted in the dissolution of Matthew Good Band should have subsided for most; their last album, The Audio of Being , came out nearly fifteen years ago and was almost immediately expressed dissatisfaction with the record (for what it's worth, I still think its tension and nervous energy make it his best full band record). The thing is, where most artists embarking on a solo career in the wake of a successful band run would flame out or slowly fade, Matthew Good has quietly built a solo career that's vibrant and important within the spectrum of Canadian artists. For as much as those four MGB records accomplished in terms of popularity, the seven solo records that have surfaced since have established Good as so much more than the snarling, difficult voice of an admittedly great alt-rock band. That said, I haven't always latched onto Good's solo records the way I did The Audio of Being , but that's on me; fortunately, I've ha...

  Zipper Down  is Eagles of Death Metal's first record in nearly seven years; spearheaded by Jesse Hughes and Josh Homme (the latter of which from Queens of the Stone Age if you're oblivious to all of this), EODM has long been regarded as Homme's fun party rock side gig. As technically true as that is, there have been some truly great songs to come out of the Hughes/Homme partnership; as a result, the original trilogy of EODM albums are worthy records that by and large rise above any air of novelty. That their fourth record doesn't stray far from the bawdy roots of the band shouldn't come as a shock to anyone; this is good time rock n' roll, and if you've listened to any of their previous records, you've pretty much gotten all the primer you're going to need going into this one. There are a few laughs, particularly on the hipster-baiting  Silverlake (K.S.O.F.M.) , though the majority of the record revolves around Hughes' incessant need to boogie....

For as prolific as Jack White is renowned for being, his rate of output as of late has slowed a bit. Following a period of intense productivity that saw the release of a new record every year between 2006 and 2010 (split between The White Stripes, The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather), White's two solo albums were the only high profile releases bearing his name from 2010 until the release of Dodge and Burn . Those solo albums established White as a formidable solo artist, to be sure, but the playful and exploratory nature of his bands' records was tempered somewhat. Hallelujah, then, for Dodge and Burn ; this, the third Dead Weather record (and first in five years, it should be noted), finds the group embracing all the weird urges that they've pursued to a certain extent previously, albeit without venturing too far off course. It's a well-rounded set of tunes, and the most consistent record they've created yet. It should come as no surprise that The Kills...