Reviews – Page 5 – Stylus Magazine

August 1, 2023June 25, 2023

Album Review :: Amos the Kid :: Enough as it was

*Because I care for Amos Nadlersmith, the front man of Amos the Kid, and we’ve fussed around with songs over the years, two of which ended up on this album (I don’t write about those here for obvious reasons), don’t read this as a review proper, but as an appreciation of Amos’s songwriting and an interpretation of his work from my subjective position. *

by Noah Cain

Amos the Kid’s debut album, Enough as it Was, opens with the world on fire. Smoke hangs in the sky like clouds. In the choking heat, The Kid—the moniker I have for the album’s hero—feels drawn away from the city, to return home and reckon with what’s transpired, to square what he was taught about the world with his experiences in the world, to digest it all before riding out into a future all his own.

July 25, 2023October 13, 2023

EP Review :: STELLAR :: Stages

Reviving the New Vintage Attitude

by Albert Akimov

STELLAR’s distinctive vintage aesthetic infuses a united message in its music and visuals, a message about the past and what it could have been. Released in 2021, their first single, “Call Me Goodbye,” is a touching, melancholy track about heartache, with shimmer acoustic guitars, harmonized, reverbed vocals, and winding solos. In the same vein, they released “Stranger,” which touches on topics like unrequited love and ends with a beautiful guitar solo. “Water” is their most recent single, which has a calming, meditative vibe and continues to express a dysfunctional partnership that, ultimately, does not work out.

July 18, 2023June 25, 2023

Album Review :: Braids :: Euphoric Recall

by Daniel Kussy

Raphaelle Standell-Preston cries aloud a prolonged “Oh My God” to introduce the space-y free-flowing “Left/Right.” A sudden blink in lyrical flow once “illuminated on the mountain top: Mont Royal” spills like a panic of spacial hyper-awareness as the strings wash over the synth floor, the acknowledgement of footsteps which the song title points to. A track with such spontaneity feeds into a theme within Euphoric Recall; the abandonment of strategy, burning away the structures and embracing the impulses, and welcoming imperfections. A move seemingly necessary to exercise the pandemic demons many artists endured, Euphoric Recall follows 2020’s “Shadow Offering,” one of many albums created with hopes of support in the form of performances and subsequent touring that got washed out in the pandemic noise. In the demand for patience and space, this album is also an urgency for movement, injected from a lingering groove-based pulse from Standell-Prestons’ fluid-motion side project Blue Hawaii.

July 11, 2023June 25, 2023

Album Review :: Hopscotchbattlescars :: sick of you

by James Baines

Since 2021 when hopscotchbattlescars released their first widely available single, “god hates straight pride flags,” fans have been waiting and begging for a full-length album from the band.

June 25, 2023June 25, 2023

Album Review :: Nickybaby :: Nickybaby

by Jakob Sheppard

Nickybaby’s self titled album was a very intriguing listen. It has elements of folk and indie rock that combine to form one of my favourite indie releases of the year so far. It has almost deceptively good production, meaning that it sounds very rough, but that lack of fidelity only aids in conveying the theme of the record.

June 13, 2023May 14, 2023

EP Review :: Tinge :: Big Deep Sigh

by Mykhailo Vil’yamson

In the song “Pennyroyal Tea,” Kurt Cobain once sang, “Give me a Leonard Cohen afterworld, so I can sigh eternally.” Not every artist possesses the ability to impel listeners to breathe deeply, but this is definitely the case with Tinge’s debut EP Big Deep Sigh. The project hearkens back to when Indie was more Punk than pretentious and when Emo was less of a post-goth fashion statement than an angst-ridden, authentic, and worthy successor to Grunge-era music.

June 6, 2023May 14, 2023

EP Review :: Noah Derksen :: Sanctity of Silence

photo of Noah colour edited to look aged.

by Paul Newsom

Winnipeg singer-songwriter Noah Derksen makes strikingly earnest music. It’s probably thanks to this fact that seeing his most recent album come up marked “Explicit” on streaming services feels momentarily surreal – if only for the presence of several pointed and beautiful breakup songs on the record.

May 30, 2023May 14, 2023

Album Review :: Yes We Mystic :: Trust Fall

by Jakob Sheppard

Winnipeg’s own Yes We Mystic’s third and final album, Trust Fall, was released on October 21st, 2022. The group describes it as (in addition to being heavily inspired by Kate Bush) “the songs were most proud of, and that we fought the hardest to bring into the world.”

May 16, 2023May 14, 2023

Album Review :: Lizzards :: Lizzards II

Lizzards - three lizard heads with a human body in white shirts and lizard hands smoking or holding something . . .

by Myles Tiessen

The Lizzards have slithered back for their sophomore release, Lizzards II. Arriving via the local staple Eat Em Up Records, Lizzards II takes everything they brought to their S/T debut and brings a heightened ferocity. The vocals are snarlier, the guitars have quicker licks, the bass lines are boomier than ever, and the kit kicks with untethered tenacity.