SOUND BITES

Coming just over seven years after their last album (the post-reunion Glory Under Dangerous Skies ) and nearly a full calendar year after the release of lead single Tarantino , the rollout for End of the Ocean has been long and arduous for fans of the Canadian rock veterans. Due to the myriad of frustrating delays in touring and promotion that a global pandemic brings ( End of the Ocean was originally announced in April with a planned October release), the excitement level for hearing Moist's fifth album has been inevitably dampened somewhat. Four singles had been rolled out over 2021, meaning nearly half of the album is already known by anyone who was paying attention. Thankfully, the remaining tracks blend with those previously released to form another solid outing for Moist. Once again produced by guitarist Mark Makoway, End of the Ocean is a concise and rock-centric nostalgia blast with the kind of energy that begs for the band's oft-delayed tour dates to finally be made...

Longtime lovers of rock and alternative music in Canada have to be feeling a little weird these days. More and more major Canadian alt bands from the '90s that went gently into the night have resurfaced in recent years (see: Headstones, Big Wreck, the Grapes of Wrath, etc.), armed not just with reunion tours but also with new material. So when Moist announced their return amid The Tea Party's unveiling of their first new music in a decade, there simply wasn't enough thunder to go around, and I sadly approached Moist's fourth album with a little less excitement than I normally would have. One of the first things you'll notice about Glory Under Dangerous Skies is the abundance of guitars. This is surely at least partially due to production duties being handled by lead guitarist Mark Makoway; far be it for me to complain about guitars being present on a rock album, but they're a lot more prevalent here than on Moist's original trinity of albums. Indeed, the ...