Results tagged “altcountry”

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There was a time—a brief, glorious time—in the late nineties and early two thousands when the word "emo" had become somewhat interchangeable with indie and was not yet a default joke about eye-obscuring black hair and all of the awful, angled mirror shots showcasing it. When some of the best of these nu-emo American pop artists (Death Cab for Cutie, anyone?) showed up in Seth Cohen's bedroom and then a barrage of commercials, the underground found its way up and into the charts, and fans were left with an empty (and very popular and profitable) shell of the worst parts of the genre; shiny young bands riding the re-brand all the way into Hot Topic and weird Livejournal role-playing communities.

A couple of years and handfuls of shows can do wonders for a band with the potential that the Great Bloomers were oozing when Torontoist first saw them fill a sweaty Drake basement more than a year ago. Today, the Great Bloomers release their full-length debut, Speak of Trouble, on MapleMusic. A continuation of the danceable indie roots-rock from their self-titled 2007 EP, Speak of Trouble demonstrates a marked musical maturation and an embracing of eras past, complete with narrative lyrical recollections of youthful hope and exploits and an already-classic sound reminiscent of warm AM radio textures.

After releasing albums with other seminal punk/folk/blues artists such as Andre Williams (1999) and Jon Langford (2003), Toronto favourites The Sadies bring us their latest collaboration, out today on Outside Music, this time with tenacious musician and actor John Doe. Founder and frontman of the once-quintessential Los Angeles punk band X, it wasn't until Doe's solo 1990 debut, Meet John Doe, that he fully embraced the country direction X started taking in the late 1980s. He fits in just perfectly at the Sadies's Country Club.