Irish Goodbyes
Some Party is a newsletter sharing the latest in independent Canadian rock'n'roll, curated 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.
Pro Wrestling The BandWeanling
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
My household is in a full-blown 90s phase, at least when my wife wrests control of the stereo. The bands she ripped from magazines and scotch-taped to her bedroom wall all happen to be touring, and I'll admit I've willingly tagged along to some very unpunk shows, nay, concerts, at the Niagara casino this year. That elder millennial dollar is ripe for the picking.
Whatever wistful sentimentality has us queuing up to see the Gin Blossoms or Better Than Ezra in the year of our lord 2026 has bled into my feelings on Pro Wrestling The Band. They're certainly not a legacy act, and the stage I last saw them was merely a foot high, but there's a cozy vibe to the five tracks comprising Weanling that strikes a nostalgic chord. The London group dialled back both their twang and punk tendencies from their debut, opting for massive, anthemic power-pop on this EP. Songs like "Irish Goodbyes" and "Tarps" are sure-fire hits for a radio audience that no longer exists. While that's a shame, I'm fine not sharing. I look forward to hearing a tiny crowd shout themselves hoarse the next time I catch Pro Wrestling in some small town bar. I'm not so old that stadium seating sounds the least bit appealing, anyway. That's cold comfort for the band's accounts, but, hey, I don't drive the culture.
Pro Wrestling The Band recorded Weanling live off the floor at the Sugar Shack with Kyle Ashbourne engineering and co-producing. The record features Craig Gignac on guitars, keys, and vocals, Danny Kidd (Our Sins, Never Betters, The Drew Thomson Foundation, Single Mothers) on guitar and vocals, Nathan Stock (Heart Attack Kids) on drums, and Bobby Calwell on bass. Patrick Briggs of London's acerbic MVLL CRIMES guests on guitar and vocals, as well. Daggermouth's Stuart McKillop mastered at Rain City Recorders.
In an essay for Scummy Water Tower, Danny Kidd shared the band's approach to the EP and their career, largely crediting The Sadies with inspiring their work ethic. He notes:
"Maybe all of this is fake, maybe the internet isn't real, but a temporary place we've hung our hats for now. We're doing all we can, and we're doing it all DIY, hoping that someone will take notice. If they don't, fuck 'em. We know we're good. We will do anything for our art, no matter what anyone says is the way. The more I'm learning about this, the more I'm starting to think there is no right way, just keep trying and don't break up."
The group last issued the full-length Falling In Love With Pro Wrestling the Band in 2024. Kidd also appeared with the London supergroup Our Sins last year, performing on their debut A Sea of Nude Limbs Thrashing.
PhysicalistPhysicalist
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
For whatever reason, Dirt Cult's digital streams of Physicalist close with the EP's full master repeated as a single, unsegmented closing track. I didn't clock this for an embarrassingly long time, but I've now come to expect it. Befitting the scattershot quality of their Night Court lineage, the band flails through five tunes in just north of eight minutes - a blur of manic hooks amidst an unhinged collage of out-of-context audio snippets. I'm usually two songs into the repeat before I realize I'm hearing them a second time. That disorienting, kinetic blur is a selling point. Well-defined singles are for squares.
Physicalist started as a solo outlet for Dave P of Vancouver punks Night Court (Jiffy Marker and Blood Meridian before that, sometimes credited as Dave-O). Since recording, the project's expanded into a proper band with the help of drummer Taylor (CELL, Unfun) and bassist Emilor Jane (Night Court, Synchromantics, Pet Blessings).
Physicalist is scrappy as fuck and slots in perfectly as an aside to Night Court's burgeoning catalogue. That band last issued $hit Machine, their fourth full-length, on Recess Records. Last year, they also collected their debut Nervous Birds EPs into a whopping 26-track collection for Debt Offensive and a host of other labels.
Beached OutAverage Weekends
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Earlier this spring, Peterborough indie duo Beached Out unveiled Average Weekends, their debut full-length for Noyes Records. Spearheaded by Anne and Jeff Parker, who split vocal and songwriting duties across the album's 11 tracks, Beached Out delivers a comfy set of fuzzed-out, 90s-informed tunes. The band plays their nostalgia card deftly, never shying from the influence of Yo La Tengo and Pavement but seemingly unburdened by that lineage. There's nothing here that feels overworked or unduly inflated, giving Average Weekends a satisfyingly intimate and nimble character.
The record makes a few notable nods to Cancon's indie past. The surfy title track tips its hat quite explicitly to Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet. "Supervillain," meanwhile, references both Eric's Trip and the mid-90s Moncton/Riverview band of the same name.
Beached Out shares a wavelength with Some Party favourites Casper Skulls and Tough Age, bands also elevated by husband-and-wife dynamics. Jeff commented on their particular approach, stating:
"We sing equally, and we write equally, and probably go through about 20 iterations of lyrics on each song until we come up with something we can both love."
The album features Jeff on guitar and Anne on drums. The pair recorded with Adam Haggarty at The Reverie. J. LaPointe mastered at Archive. The new record follows up on 2024's Decades EP.
PranatricksInfiniteness
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Andrew Clements recently wrapped up his psych-folk project Pranatricks with the release of Infiniteness, the third and final chapter of a three-album sequence following 2023's Cherished and 2024's Elements Of. The record not only closes that triptych but puts the 20-year stage name to bed. It finds the Cumberland, BC artist mining his history, reviving and reimagining ideas from years of recording and songwriting efforts to craft a restrained and pensive coda. Clements remains slyly hooky, and while he toys with heady soundscapes, he's mature enough to avoid over-indulgence in either. Infiniteness, despite its name, never wanders without purpose; it has atmosphere, not ambiance. I usually shy from dream-pop as a descriptor, as it's so often used to label toothless mush, but taken literally, it's not a bad fit here.
I'm quite partial to the subtle twang and weary menace of "Set Yourself on Fire," one of the years-in-the-works songs finalized for this set. The record's at its noisiest with the alt-rock single "Superstar," which draws on Clements' past as a pro baseball player. He explains:
"Framed as a reckoning with expectation and identity at the end of a sporting life, the song reflects one of the central tensions that informs Infiniteness: how deeply formative systems — athletic, cultural, or familial — continue to echo long after their structures fall away."
Last year, Clements issued the archival collections Doorsteps and WINDS, bringing some of the project's earliest experiments back into conversation. Like the earlier records in the trilogy, Infiniteness is largely the product of Clements' home studio with few outside collaborators. Adam Percy assisted in producing and mixed at Neon Pine Studio on Denman Island. Josh Stevenson mastered at Otic Sound in Vancouver.
Population IIGimmicks
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Montreal psych trio Population II recently resurfaced with Gimmicks, a new EP that puts a different spin on their compellingly noisy psych rock. The five-song set finds the trio ditching guitars entirely in favour of synths and keyboards, a kosmische turn that throws back to the pioneering sounds of early electronic groups like Syrinx and Tangerine Dream. The new material surfaced on vinyl through Bonsound, pressed with their earlier EP Serpent Échelle on the B-side. That set, issued in 2024, presents a contrasting vision of the group: leaning into fuzzy post-punk and a heavier guitar-drum-and-bass attack.
The new platter serves as a companion piece to Maintenant Jamais, the band's 2025 full-length that went on to make the Polaris Music Prize shortlist — no small feat for a Francophone noise act.
Population II features vocalist/drummer Pierre-Luc Gratton, guitarist/keyboardist Tristan Lacombe, and bassist Sébastien Provençal. They again worked with the studio team of producer Dominic Vanchesteing (Marie Davidson, Chocolat, Peter Peter) and engineer Philippe Roberge. Pascal Shefteshy mastered the set.
Carsie Blanton&The Burning HellEverything is Great!
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
PEI's The Burning Hell have devoted no small percentage of their catalogue to treating civilizational collapse with curious bemusement. Mathias Kom often weaves their politics into reference-deep, mile-a-minute storytelling, but on occasion, they're decidedly more overt. 2020's Never Work saw Kom and partner Ariel Sharratt recast left-wing protest folk for the app-based gig economy and the Amazon factory floor. April's surprise release of Everything Is Great! takes those critiques several steps further. It's quite shockingly blunt and plays the absurdism of our times for the comedy it is.
A joint release with firebrand New Jersey singer-songwriter Carsie Blanton, the artists bill Everything Is Great! as a "miniature muppet musical." It's an apt descriptor, as the artists perform here as over-the-top caricatures, trading playful barbs about capitalist rot and the fate of the billionaire class as if puppeted by Henson and Oz.
Announcing the record on Instagram, Blanton recounted the album's genesis:
"Sometimes the stars align, and in a venue's secret kitchen on a Canadian island, over a bottle of cheap wine, you meet your creative soulmates: the two other people on earth who are equipped emotionally and spiritually to write a FUNNY album about imperialism, private equity, late-stage capitalism, and what it feels like to be alive in the pre-revolutionary period."
Blanton, Sharratt, Kom, and Joe Plowman recorded this set last November in Kinvara, Ireland, at the home of Irish guitarist Frank Kilkelly. Kilkelly plays some guitar on the record, which also features Dónal McConnon on trombone, percussion, and clarinet and legendary Irish accordion player Sharon Shannon on melodeon.
The record follows up on The Burning Hell's 2025 LP, Ghost Palace (You've Changed Records / BB*Island) and Kom's recent collaboration with Michael Cloud Duguay as the bleak post-rock act Closed City. Carsie Blanton issued The Red Album in 2024.
