During the Edmonton Folk Fest last year a friend and I wandered upon a session at a side stage and decided to stop and catch a song or two on the way to something else. We wound up planting ourselves for the next hour because a band we’d never heard of from Toronto, New Country Rehab, was so thoroughly owning the stage that I wound up planning the remainder of my time at the festival around their schedule. Since then I have heard multiple people name the band as their favourite find of 2012. Their second album, Ghost of Your Charms, makes it easy to believe fans of the folk fest circuit will continue naming New Country Rehab in their “you have to hear this” conversations for a while yet.
As implied by the band name, their ethos is rooted in country but the songs are of breathtaking quality and range, taking an expansive enough view of what “country” is supposed to mean that listeners who identify with a broad range of preferences should find a bunch to enjoy here. There are noticeable parallels with some surprising forms: they are a stomping southern bar band on “Lost Highway,” step into a few breaks that feel like pulsating new wave on “The Bank and The Army,” and “Rollin’” demonstrates the time-honoured traditions of spacey surf gospel music. Fiddler and lead vocalist John Showman enunciates every word with great clarity, and his sharpness is a reflection of the band’s collective identity. They are highly skilled musicians, have created some deceptively sophisticated songs, and even these studio recordings sound like a band of buddies laughing together as they play. (Kelp, newcountryrehab.com) Daniel Emberg