I Just Wanna See You Smile

Following Friday's extremely earnest and sentimental post, I thought I would keep it simple and give you some music recs for a rainy Sunday in Montreal.



Back when Beat Noir had just put out Ecotone, we played a flurry of shows in support of the release, including a particularly good one in Toronto to a packed house with bands from Ontario. We were getting a good response to the album and were feeling ourselves. The morning after that show, Kyle sent us Sleep Through to the Light way before it came out and we were all struck by how much better it was than what we had just done. Wayfarer's been one of the best emo bands in the world since Our Fathers and I'm not sure why more people haven't taken notice. While most of the bands from the Southern Ontario punk scene of the 10's have broken up, like The Decay, Orphan Choir, and !ATTENTION!, Wayfarer has stuck around and continued to put out music that grows on what preceded it. This record's fucking amazing.



The World's Best American Band was one of my favourite releases of 2017 and has stayed in pretty consistent rotation since then. Given how much I enjoyed that record, I was predictably eager to check out White Reaper's new album You Deserve Love when it came out last week. They dial down the performative stadium rock irony a little bit ( :'( ), while staying devoted to giving you a cross section of early 80's FM radio rock. Wonderful stuff and a for sure presence on the end of the year list.



I went and saw Ancient Shapes in Montreal last week. Absolutely loved the S/T debut, but TBH didn't invest as much time in the follow up, Silent Rave. I was shocked and excited at the show when the newer cuts they played tended more towards a power-pop (as much as AS could get more power pop) and lo-fi glam direction than the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants catchy punk of the first two records. Huge choruses all around and for sure my favourite Ancient Shapes release and favourite Romano release since Modern Pressure.

Also on that show were Teenanger, who I had never checked out before. They were great!