Shopping in the Toothpaste Aisle
Some Party is a newsletter sharing the latest in independent Canadian rock'n'roll, curated more-or-less weekly by Adam White. Each edition explores punk, garage, psych, and otherwise uncategorizable indie rock, drawing lines from proto to post and taking some weird diversions along the way.
No Frills"Shopping In The Toothpaste Aisle"
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Whatever indignities 2025 has in store, it at least promises a new record of bummer-pop gems from Toronto's No Frills. That's a low-stakes tentpole to hang the year on, but I'm out of gas, folks. How are you not? Sad Clown, the band's sophomore full-length, arrives March 7 through We Are Busy Bodies, furthering the charmingly downtrodden outlook established on 2022's Downward Dog. The new set wanders through twelve songs over forty minutes, blending the band's wry yet restrained take on '60s pop with sparsely arranged strings. That's about the energy level I'm prepared to handle, at this point.
No Frills captured the core of Sad Clown in loose sessions with engineers Chris Shannon and Nate Vanderwielen (members of art-rock act BART) at the Toronto studio 500 Keele. Vocalist/guitarist Daniel Busheikin tracked additional guitars, synths, and vocals from his basement. Guests on the record include a string quartet led by cellist Eliza Niemi, Alex Hamlyn (Century Palm, Ketamines) on sax, and Kristina Koski (Chandra, Praises) on flute.
The lead single, "Shopping in the Toothpaste Aisle," is now streaming everywhere. You can experience the fluorescent-lit purgatory of wandering a Shoppers Drug Mart in the accompanying video, available on YouTube.
No Frills finds Busheikin backed by bassist Maddy Wilde (Rapport), guitarist Matt Buckberrough (Twist, Beds), and drummer Jonathan Pappo (WHIMM, Ducks Ltd.).
If you're in Toronto on December 5, you'll find No Frills and PACKS pooling their languid, lo-fi powers for a can't miss show at Ted's Collision.
BurnerBecome Nothing
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
At long last, we have a full-length from Toronto-via-Oakville noise-punks Burner. Become Nothing arrived earlier this month through zBTFD Records, delivering on seven years of anticipation with nine weighty new songs. There's a sense of clarity and determination here that reaches well beyond Burner's "crazy basement bullshit" origins. Their debut follows up on June's teaser "OUTTATHECOUNT" single and their self-titled 2018 EP.
Multi-instrumentalist Fraser McClean (also of Casper Skulls) revealed that, despite pressure to build the band's profile through singles and short-form releases, the group stubbornly committed to crafting an "album album." He commented in a fascinatingly candid (and impressively long) write-up at Bandcamp:
"My thought process in my own gigantic head is I'm imagining us as a part of a lineage... I put on full albums by bands, and that's the metric I use to decide if a band is good or not. Sure, you can have good singles. But - and this is not to say our album does or doesn't do it - can you make an album that stands up against all the other classics?"
That mission statement finds the band writing a collection of unflinchingly dense songs. Even in their lo-fi days, Burner went darker and grungier than their contemporaries in the Toronto punk scene, and here they revel in the sludge. Deshaun Molloy's gravelly vocals are well suited to channel 90s angst, and it's easy to imagine a downtrodden anthem like "Downland" getting airtime on The Edge back in the flannel and wallet chain era. The vocalist commented on the group's gloomy perspective in that same press release:
"Lyrically, a lot of the stuff can sometimes be a little bit dark or not-so-dark but darker than you think. But, yeah, I go dark... And a big reason why I do that is the bands I grew up listening to did the same thing and they helped me. People tell me 'Stop being so sad and listening to sad music all the time.' But I'm, like, 'No, no, no. Listening to sad music shows you you're not alone.' And that's the thing: when you relate to something, that's when you can heal."
Burner recorded over three years with a slate of notable producers, including Aaron Goldstein (engineer for Bry Webb and Julianna Riolino), Tallies' Dylan Frankland (Fucked Up, Partner), and Stephan Pitman (of Only God Forgives and Hobby), and Thrush Hermit's Ian McGettigan. Josh Korody of Breeze mixed the record, with Noah Mintz mastering. The current Burner lineup features vocalist Deshaun Molloy, Fraser McClean on guitar and bass, and bassist Amy Praught. Original drummer Evan Saunders (Dead Broke) plays on these recordings, with Ross Chornyy (Life in Vacuum) and Dan Aguiar (Waste Youth) now playing for the group live. Violet De Rege-Braga of the Toronto emo act Roach guests on two Become Nothing tracks.
Piercing DamageDemo 2024
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Charlottetown's small yet thriving hardcore scene continues to punch (or, in this case, stab) far above its weight. The latest act to emerge from the Island is Piercing Damage. The group debuted a searing five-song demo last week through Montreal's Be About It zine.
Piercing Damage came together in August, featuring vocalist Andrew Cormier, formerly of Swallowing Knives and Iron Eye. Baited bandmates Liam Farrell and Tyler Turner play guitar and bass, respectively. Brett Sanderson, who we know from Cell Deth and the dearly departed Antibodies, drums for the group. Look for tapes soon through Be About It.
It's been a fruitful year for this crew on adjacent projects. In the Spring, Baited issued the double A-side singles "Red" and "Big Iron." Cell Deth's Catholic Guilt EP landed in the summer via Sewercide Records.
La Sécurité"Detour"
Watch on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Montreal art-punk collective La Sécurité has signed with Bella Union, the prestigious UK label run by former Cocteau Twin Simon Raymonde. They're celebrating the occasion with the bubbly dancefloor-ready "Detour," their first single for the imprint. The track arrived alongside a new video from directors Dirt and Daydream.
The band recorded with Faith Healer's Renny Wilson (Nap Eyes, Laughing). Vocalist Éliane Viens-Synnott commented on their studio chemistry:
"We recorded the song with an old friend of mine. It was with Renny that I first recorded, went on tour, etcetera. It was refreshing to watch him work on instincts, trying to keep takes and tones as natural as possible, keeping everything open-ended to see where it could lead us. We tried for the song to remain raw. Also, because we know each other so well, it seems to me that he already knew what our music should sound like."
The track features La Sécurité's current lineup of Viens-Synnott on vocals, synth, and percussion, Félix Bélisle on bass, Kenneth David Smith on drums, Laurence Anne Charest-Gagné on guitar and vocals, and Melissa Di Menna on the same. Wilson and Bélisle co-produced the song, with Francis Ledoux mastering.
La Sécurité's riding high on the success of their 2023 debut Stay Safe! and the spring's remix EP (not to mention the wild Devo-core of Kenny Smith's Pressure Pin side-project). All of the above surfaced via Mothland. The group plans to continue working with the Montreal label in the US and Canada while Bella Union serves up their next album overseas.
Les BreastfeedersLa ville engloutie
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Montreal veterans Les Breastfeeders just resurfaced from a twelve-year recording hiatus with La ville engloutie. The new LP, their fourth, arrived earlier this month through Bonsound, delivering twelve songs that bounce effortlessly between 60s-styled psychedelia, proto-punk, French yé-yé, and infectious garage rock. The band explores different aspects of the titular sunken city from track to track, each representing "a neighborhood, a street, an alley, a door, a room, a person" in their conceptual setting.
You can stream the record everywhere or see the swaggering single "On ne prête qu'aux riches" visualized in a new video from director Amanda Van der Siebes.
This latest iteration of Les Breastfeeders features Luc Brien on vocals and guitar, Jocelyn Gagné on bass, David Deïas (Mystic Motorcycles, Yardlets on lead guitar, Maxime Hébert (The High Dials, UUBBUURRUU) on drums, Karine Roxane Isabel (Comme un homme libre) on vocals, and as always the charismatic Johnny Maldoror (aka Martin Dubreuil) on enthusiastic tambourine.
The group's celebrating their return with an album release show on November 23 at Montreal's Theatre Fairmount as part of M For Montreal. They'll follow that with a run of Quebec dates through the spring of 2025.
Les Breastfeeders recorded La ville engloutie with engineer Ryan Battistuzzi (Taxi Girls, The Low Sixes). The new record's their first since 2011's Dans La Gueule Des Jours.
MulchNuance Maximum
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Hot on the heels of their recent split with Population II (highlighted last week in this very column), Montreal's Mulch strike again with Nuance Maximum. The unrelenting, reverb-soaked EP marks the self-described "frog punk" band's first release delivered entirely in French, a milestone they mocked on Instagram:
"Nuance Maximum est un EP complètement en français. Nous en sommes pas peu fiers. Un EP toujours aussi fâché et existentiel que le premier."
The quartet features vocalist Rose Cormier, backed by William Trottier-Jackson, Timothy Aaron Bryan, and Michael Tomizzi. Julien Levesque co-engineered the set with Bryan, with No Fun Audio mastering. Visual artist Trevor Yardley-Jones created the cover collage.
The four-song EP, available from the band on cassette, follows February's Nothing Grows Out of Dried Flowers and the aforementioned Mulchulation II split.
