We aren’t even halfway through February and already so much good music is being put out. Here are three of my favourite artists putting out new records that are all quite different and all perfect in their own way.

If I had a gun to my head and someone told me to say my top three bands of all time, Pinegrove would be one of the bands I spit out without thinking about the question too hard. They’ve now put out six albums, each similar in sound but their writing has grown significantly. The emotion they’re conveying on this new one you’ll feel right in your gutty works. 11:11 is poetry in motion from front to back. They bring you through the highs and lows of their pandemic experience.

The album starts off with a softness and then an unexpected jolt on “Habitat”. A song that musically and lyrically will take you through the last two year’s political landscape in America and it’s effect on the individual. The bridge and outro is a beautiful bit of laid back minimalistic drumming, bass, and guitar that will calm the nerves along with the lazy vocals and sounds of birds chirping and wind blowing through the trees.

A favourite track for me is definitely “Iodine”. It begins with simple fingerpicking on an acoustic guitar. Lyrically the song speaks to finding the motivation to carry on with the meniality of daily tasks during a time when everything around us is tainted with a smattering of doom. This song just captures that feeling perfectly in its soothing downtempo sound and exhausted vocals.

In the liner notes of the record there is a poem that frontman Evan Stephens Hall wrote about the album I want to leave you with. And Remember, poetry is always best read aloud.

_{“11:11, the simplest pattern, a line of trees, people shoulder to shoulder, the letter ‘I’ itself, the pinegrove, myself. the time that most resembles corduroy, one minute in the morning (& if you’re lucky, again at night) when the portal opens & you briefly see through the ethereal smoke to something actual. i lean the painting against the window. trees wiggle like toothpicks in the background. the painting is absorbed in the scene, forest print green couch, knit heathered spring green blanket. watching last summer’s fires glowing in the west through my little glowing rectangle. videos of cops brutalizing people protesting police brutality. this summer’s smoke diaphanous today across the catskills. orlando pressed medusalike against the kitchen window. hazy afternoon, but beautiful.”}

– Pinegrove

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Black Country, New Road was without a doubt my favourite musical discovery of 2021. From October when I first heard “Sunglasses“, I pretty much didn’t listen to anything else. The songs are long and epic. There’s like, 30 people in the band (there’s really only seven) and the songs are always intricate to the point where it’s tough to tell when one ends and another begins.

If you asked me to tell you their genre it would honestly feel like trying to explain music to an alien who just landed on earth; somewhere in between post-punk, disdain-pop and avant garde rock.

The album opens with an instrumental, rife with horns that goes into their first single from the album “Chaos Space Marine”. A song that’ll get you fired up while also making you feel slightly uneasy. This track and several others on the record descend into a drunken chaos.

This album may just be one of the best albums ever made in my opinion. Reminiscent of Pink Floyd – The Wall with a touch of Beach Boys – Pet Sounds, this album will forever be remembered as a truly unique masterpiece.

It’s just a shame Isaac Wood, the bands frontman has left the band just before they began their tour for Ants From Up There. The band said they’d continue without him, but after losing their singer and main songwriter it just won’t be the same. I guess I’ll never get the chance to see them live. 😦

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Richard Inman’s first record, Faded Love Better Days was one of my most played records of 2021 without a doubt. In Particular the title track really resonated with me. His new album is a bit of a punch in the gut with homesickness. Now that I’m a province away, it just sounds like home. Prairie music for the soul. A beautiful commingling of alt-country, folk and heartbreak.

The album opens with his first and only single from the record, “Waiting On a River“. It begins with a solo melancholy fiddle and acoustic guitar. The bass and drums come in minimalistically and let Richard’s voice do the heavy lifting, as it should be. The chorus will instantly be lodged in your head and will have you putting your device on single song repeat.

_{“Now I’m diggin’ for change, waiting on a river,
just hoping that my liver and my luck hold out.
Thinkin’ on your dark eyes, dark haired darlin’.
Chase away my worries and wash away my doubt.
Away my doubt”}

Richard Inman – “Waiting On a River”

The title track, “Come Back Through“, tells a story millennials and artists are all too familiar with, being broke and finding camaraderie in that. Making mistakes is a part of life but for some people, we are one mistake away from what feels like complete ruin. This song may as well be the song of my generation. It’s poignant but not to the point of despair. The song leaves me feeling proud to be a part of a community that is supportive and will always lift me up when I fall down.

He isn’t a well known artist in Canada, but he puts on one of the most memorable shows I’ve ever seen. Some shows I want to be loud and rowdy but I find it much more impressive when a room of 200+ people can all collectively shut their yaps and just listen. I saw him play at the Empress Ale House in Edmonton, Alta. (RIP) and I was afraid to breathe because the room was that quiet. Richard Inman is the only one I’ve ever seen do this to a room of cowboys, punks and rascals