From The Knowing That I'll Never Sing In Tune, Like The Rest Of You

On Canadian radio there is a law in place, the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission, that requires a certain amount (35%) of their content to be Canadian. On one hand this is good because it assures that young Canadian artists will have a chance for success and not be overshadowed by more popular artists from the United States. On the other hand it sucks because A) a ton of really shitty bands get airplay they don't deserve, because they are Canadian (I'm looking at you Hedley) and B) they get ahold of a decent band and just play the shit out of them. As as result, there's a lot of bands that are pretty fucking rad, but I can get turned off of because they are played on 102.1 The Edge so much.

Sidenote: The worst part of these bands getting played is the assholes that come to the shows. I don't want to sound like a cynical "I was there before you" jerk, but I've been following The Flatliners for a pretty long time now (I think right before Destroy To Create came out) and the shows have been getting kind of shitty lately because of the kids that come because they heard "This Respirator" on the radio. The pinnacle was the show I went to last week. It just sucks that all the "Moto-X" kids come to shows wearing Metal Mulisha and stuff because they haven't grown out of punk and started listening to dub-step and shitty hip-hop yet.

One such of these bands was Attack In Black. Their debut album "Marriage" came out and the first single "Young Leaves" received loads and loads of airplay. This is around 2007 and maybe into 2008 a little bit. I hated it. A large part of this was that it was on the radio every time I turned it on and was getting tired of it. This is also due to the fact that back in those days I barely listened to anything that wasn't ska or skate punk and hadn't gone through my enlightenment to good song writing (and hadn't realized that girls are the devil yet).

But, because of a compilation cd I had two Attack In Black songs on my computer that weren't "Young Leaves" (they were Marriage and Broken Things). After "Marriage" started to lean towards the folkier side of their music and put a ton of music that didn't get the attention that "Marriage" did. The overplaying of the single also obviously died down after a while and I found myself enjoying "Broken Things" a little bit (C'mon, try not to yell along to the "these are the broken things in my life" part. Dare you.) because I was starting to come around to better songwriters at that time.

So that track got a decent amount of play and earlier this year I finally got around to getting "Marriage". It is just a phenomenal album. Attack In Black was originally more of a punk band and have morphed into a folkier thing. I guess it's fair to say that this album is the middle ground between the two. What I like about it (a lot!) is that it avoids the Re-Inventing Axl Rose-era Against Me! stereotypes that usually plague the genre. Rather than sticking to the open C/G/Am/Em chord structure that everyone bastardizes, they do a bunch of cool stuff (drop D tuning!). It's really a rock-punk record that healthy Canadian folk influence. On top of this is a dude who is just in every way, shape and form and awesome song-writer.

The other day I was walking through the snow to the bus in a denim jacket and jeans combo (the "Canadian Tuxedo") with this album playing and I don't think I've ever felt more Canadian (re: like a hoser) in my life.

For your health: