On his new album, Cult of Love, local retro-popster Art Imperial takes a grab bag of sounds from the ’50s and ’60s—doo-wop, surf rock, British Invasion pop, and Phil Spector girl groups to name a few—and creates a record that is at once heartbreaking and catchy. Imperial’s love of ’60s sounds doesn’t make him unique: [...]

There are two major problems with Take Care, the second official studio album from Torontonian rap mega-star Drake. First, and most prominently, is Drake’s weird tendency for sitting on the fence between pop star and MC. On one hand, Drizzy loves making pop music. The sad, forlorn, puppy-dog eyed version of Aubrey Graham that appears [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. The quick crush you’re going to develop on the Skeletones Four might surprise you. Hailing from Guelph but based in Toronto, the band’s proper [...]

Graham Wright is better (un?)known as the keyboardist for local indie-rock wunderkinds Tokyo Police Club, but on Shirts Vs. Skins he makes a strong bid for an official solo guy position. In 2008 he released the free-download The Lakes of Alberta EP, but its brevity and folksy singer/songwriter-y lean made it feel a little less of an certified side project than an easy uptake for anyone in a band with an acoustic guitar and Garageband.

With the elephants at the Toronto Zoo moving out, a new crop is taking their place just in the nick of time. And, lucky for us, we like their trumpeting even more. Bent By Elephants formed, and are mostly based, in Montreal, but with their trombonist here, Toronto has become a second home for the seven-piece pop/jazz/folk ensemble.

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. On their new album Departing, the Rural Alberta Advantage haven’t actually done much of that at all. Instead, the sophomore full length sounds like [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. The sparse folk of Snowblink‘s first album is well suited for the sunny breeze of singer Daniela Gesundheit’s California home, but there’s an icy [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. Guitar-pop outfits may be a dime a dozen around these parts, but even still, when Ruby Coast released their new full length, Whatever This [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. The homemade nature of Matthew Adam Hart’s music might make one assume that he could or should be cranking albums out a lot faster [...]

Every Tuesday, Torontoist scours record store shelves in search of the city’s most notable new releases and brings you the best—or sometimes just the biggest—of what we’ve heard in Sound Advice. After the success of last summer’s “All Yr Songs” video, one-man bedroom-popsmith Diamond Rings kept churning out singles, and it seemed to be a [...]