Tuesday, February 7, 2017

Cool

Once more, I've fallen out of practice of writing in my free time. The 40-hour week will do that to you. 9-5 in front of a computer every day has a way of melting your brain and spending more time on a computer is generally the last thing that I want to do when I get home.

This all being said, it has afforded me to listen to a lot of music, so I'll you this post to talk about a few things I'm really into.

During my golden years of Ontario punk, !ATTENTION! quickly became my favourite of all the bands I was seeing at every show. They moved from "Hey, that band was pretty good." to "I can't wait to see !ATTENTION!" to "!ATTENTION! is THE BEST." I placed a lot of importance on collecting everything they put out and listened to Another Year constantly while living on Dublin St. in Guelph. Towards of when they were still playing shows regularly in Southern Ontario, they had started putting new songs into their set that were going to be on their upcoming full-length. I couldn't wait for it. I would listen to Four or Five Ways to Play These Chords, the demo, Another Year, and their blink-182 cover all in row to pretend it was a full-length. Time started to pass and I figured that it was never going to come out.

Then, apropos of nothing, they announced in 2016 and put it out in October. Though I didn't listen to it tonnes when it came out, for some reason, it is absolutely great. I love the band and am so so proud that they are a product of the scene that I'm a part of. Please support this band however you can, because if there was ever a band that deserves it, it's !ATTENTION!




Oso Oso put out an album called Real Stories of True People Who Kind of Looked Like Monsters in 2015 that was one of my favourites from that year. It's really good!

When I saw them play in October, they played a few "joints" and it was that perfect type of live experience where it makes you so eager to listen to their stuff as soon as you get home. The new songs sounded really good and I was really excited to hear them when they came out.

In a nice turn of events, they announced on twitter that were going to do a surprise release of their album the next morning, so I made sure to download it as soon as I woke up. The album, The Yunahon Mixtape, proved to be AMAZING and has stayed in constant rotation since then. It's a great progression in their sound that subtly adds complexity to the compositions while retaining everything that made them awesome in the first place (re: extremely catchy hooks and riffs). Oso Oso has now put out two very strong albums and that is something rare and is much harder to do than it sounds. The band seems to be on an upward trajectory and is getting more attention. I'm really happy for them, as their music deserves any and all attention it gets. I may expand on why I think this album is really special in the near future, but for now, all I can do is recommend jamming this.

YO:


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