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by Jesse Popeski<\/strong> On January 4th<\/sup>, The Middle Coast shared a good news\/bad news post on social media. \u00a0The good news was the release of a new EP, titled Encore, <\/em>which they assure is the \u201cbest music we’ve ever made, hands down.\u201d \u00a0The bad news was that the band was going their separate ways. \u201cThe biggest problem is that the three of us are all strong creators,\u201d wrote keyboardist Liam Duncan, explaining that the three musicians were shifting their focus to solo projects.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n \tEncore <\/em>consists of three songs recorded in Vancouver. The new songs lean more to the accessible pop and R&B side of their writing, with a knack for arrangements that build to a climactic ending, superb musicianship, and the common theme of relationship issues, with lyrics that cleverly deviate from the expected or cliche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe opening track \u201cMe Tonight\u201d exemplifies the band’s patiently paced arrangements. From the sparse intro of Dylan’s voice and Liam’s keys, Roman tastefully elaborates on the drum part throughout the song. If one thing stands out as a development from past releases, it’s that all three songs on the EP have extremely catchy hooks, and the chorus of \u201cMe Tonight\u201d may be the most memorable. The band’s signature of balancing polished pop and raw rock n’ roll is displayed in the bright, electronic keyboards and layered harmony vocals that converse with the searing fuzz guitar in the spectacular Steely Dan tinged solo that concludes the song. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tOn the title track \u201cEncore,\u201d the contrast of funky guitar with atmospheric keyboard pads over a steady drum groove creates the most upbeat song on the EP. Roman sings the lead vocal, and where Dylan’s voice has a confessional quality, Roman’s is exuberant; \u201cEncore\u201d <\/em>is the song you’re seen unreservedly belting along with in traffic. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \tThe closer of the EP is the highlight, the devastating \u201cMaking Love in the Dark.\u201d Though the title suggests a provocative slow jam, the sentiment is defeat: \u201cYou don’t want to see the face \/ of the heart that you’re about to break \/ so we’re making love in the dark.\u201d The track pulls out all the stops: the perfect crescendo of the arrangement, the soulful blend of the vocal harmonies, Roman’s drum feature in the bridge that unleashes the climax of the final chorus, Liam’s ambient keyboard sounds contrasted with Dylan’s rhythmic guitar hooks, all serving the emotional vocal and lyric. One might go so far as to say it’s the best music they’ve ever made, hands down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you enjoy the EP, unfortunately you won’t be able to see The Middle Coast live until the reunion tour, but you can follow their solo projects: Dylan and Katie MacDonald, LIAM, and Roman Clarke are all performers at this year’s Festival du Voyageur. Recommended if you like Gashlycrumb Tinies,<\/em> Sundays at 9:00 pm on CKUW 95.9 FM. by Jesse Popeski On January 4th, The Middle Coast shared a good news\/bad news post on social media. \u00a0The good news was the release of a new EP, titled Encore, which they assure is the \u201cbest music we’ve ever made, hands down.\u201d \u00a0The bad news was that the band was going their separate ways. \u201cThe […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11325","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11325"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11328,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11325\/revisions\/11328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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