In 2010, Peter Hook, formerly of the post-punk pioneering Joy Division and more recently the electro-disco outfit New Order, decided to reclaim his repertoire of genre-melding classics by taking them on the road and performing them in their illustrious entirety with his band The Light.

Working chronologically, Hook’s first expedition was to embark upon the pilgrimage of desolate despair first paved on Joy Division’s 1979 release, Unknown Pleasures. From there, Hook worked his way through the new-wave smashes of New Order with records such as Movement (1981) and Power, Corruption & Lies (1983). Now, sitting firmly in the techno-oriented back-half of the New Order catalog, Hook is breathing new life into the “dead souls” of 1989’s acid-house rager Technique and the dance-rock debacle that was it’s 1993 follow-up, Republic.

With the spastic sputtering of cymbals on Technique’s bombastic opener “Fine Time,” the crowd at Danforth Music Hall was suddenly transported to the most hedonistic of the U.K. nightclubs via its grimy rave-boom of the late eighties. The pulsating tone is unsurprisingly throaty and urgent, as Hook has always fancied himself the orator of rock within New Order; the punk tug to the electronic pull of front-man Bernard Sumner. Consequently, it’s on tracks like “The Right Way” where Hook is most in his element, executing a driving pop-rock tune that would have even the hipster-cool kids in the corner disentangling their perpetually entwined arms.

The marriage of these two records is a particularly combative one. Technique, for one, is widely considered to be the last great New Order record, whereas Republic is subsequently considered the band’s first bust. The result is an interesting social experiment of sorts. As with the commencement of Republic, hundreds upon hundreds of Canadians began politely bobbing their heads to songs that should be scraped from the ends of this barbarous earth, let alone any self-respecting setlist. Tracks like “Ruined in a Day” would seldom be given the light of day, but with such unwavering devotion to honoring each record in full, it had to be endured. Not all was doom and gloom, though, as Republic sports New Order’s biggest North American hit in “Regret,” and the dancy deep-cut “Chemical” was benefited in bounds by the band’s punchier live rendition.

Put simply, Peter Hook is a bass deity. His guttural, droning lead bass licks are nearly as recognizable as the very songs they permeate. This recognition puts Hook in a unique position, as droves of rabid fans come to see him take sole command of the classic efforts of an iconic collective. Thankfully, taking command seems to come naturally, as Hook regularly waddles side-to-side, lugging his broad, low-hanging bass guitar across the stage while confidently plucking away at anthems such as “Ceremony” to the delight of a ravenous audience.

Despite the emphasis on New Order’s waning years, the night’s entirety was not wholly devoted to the perceived “power, corruption & lies” of the group he left behind more than a decade ago. Hook proudly revisited jams of Joy Division past with the dance-punk pillars “Transmission” and “Isolation,” before dedicating a soaring version of “Love Will Tear Us Apart” to post-punks perennial poet and former bandmate, Ian Curtis.

With that, the curtains closed, the floodlights flashed, and the vampiric ghouls of the Danforth slithered out into the night, crawling back to their woefully ordinary lives.

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When Melina Duterte, better known as Jay Som dropped her breakthrough indie-darling of a record Everybody Works in early 2017, she re-sparked an age-old debate around the definitions and merits of “Low-Fi” music, and more specifically what’s been so cleverly coined as bedroom pop. Though contested, bedroom pop is broadly considered to simply be D.I.Y. music recorded in – yes, you guessed it – one’s bedroom.

The notion of predicting an entire genre based upon the environment in which it’s recorded grows more meaningless with each passing musical year. Pretty much any artist with the resources to record and release an album from their bedroom is more than likely hammering away at the same EMS synth used at Long View Farm Studios by LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy on depressive-hipster classics such as “Someone Great”. As such, critics and fans alike began paying attention to the merits of Melina’s music rather than the confines in which it was created. What most found in doing so was a particularly pretty, off-the-wall-brand of dream pop with enough gritty realism to keep it tethered to reality. Now, on Anak Ko, Jay Som doesn’t so much expand upon her lavish-brand of a dream, but rather hones it in and paints the edges black.

Our first taste of Anak Ko came in the way of its shiny lead single, “Superbike”. A nostalgic piece of washed-out revivalism, the nineties-drenched track spends its duration rolling both the best and worst traits of the decade into one cohesively perplexing piece.  Kicking off with an irritating guitar riff that’s, more washed-up than washed-out, the next two minutes parallel a scrapped Alanis Morissette single before being swallowed whole by an epically distorted, thrashing guitar-solo in the last minute. What’s spit back out here is a sort of sonic lens from which to view the record as a whole, as like with “Superbike” itself, Anak Ko shines during it’s fuzzier, more brooding moments. A prime example of a moodier, darker Duterte can be found on the opener “If You Want It.” Driven by a groovy bass-line, lively vocals, and stiff guitar licks, it’s a great example of a more rich, adult take on a dream.

The appropriately titled “Night Time Drive” is another highlight, serving as the personal soundtrack for anyone who’s taken the back-road instead, beer in hand, watching the violet sky crash down from the windshield above. Lush and gorgeous, the mid-tempo jaunt plays like that feel-good road-trip before the inevitable existential depression kicked in. For a record that flirts with joy, it concludes with the decidedly melancholic “Get Well.” A beautifully mesmerizing and intoxicating tale of addiction. All Melina needs is a downtrodden bass, wobbly synth, and lethargic steel-pedal to invest you fully, muttering lines such as “Get well, I hope you can, how can you find peace, with a drink in your hand?” At their worst, tracks like this can come across as untruthful or pandering, but “Get Well” is delivered with such palpable, gloomy passion that you can practically feel the empathy emanating through the speakers. 

The streak of mature melancholy woven throughout this record is a welcome one. Melina prevails in not fetishizing the darker, more tortured tones and notions on the record. While it’s brighter, pop-centric tendencies displayed on tracks such as “Tenderness” contrarily lack the instrumental intrigue required to overcome it’s inherently bland, overused cliches. However, despite its high-spirited shortcomings, Anak Ko showcases Jay Som as one of the most defined artists in a largely ill-defined genre.

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Throughout their ample discography, Screaming Females have exemplified a certain talent for harmoniously bringing the more raucous and combustible elements of rock n’ roll together under one roof without somehow burning down the entire neighborhood. Over their 14-year existence, the group has explored everything from garage to grunge, with a solid scattershot shot-gun blast of indie and post-punk to boot. During their gig at the beer-battered bar-room basement that is the Garrison, however, these sounds and influences were torched slowly to the ground by a ferocious onslaught of sheer, in-your-face punk tenacity. It was byway of this punk ethos that the New Jersey-based rockers were able to achieve a unique feat rarely achieved by rock bands of the modern era – to sound dangerous in 2019.

Like with most, Screaming Females have gradually increased their fanbase with each passing record. In 2018, the group’s success reached its current-day crescendo with the heavily-acclaimed All At Once. Hard-hitting, mature, and fully-formed, the record currently stands with an 86/100 on Metacritic. It’s records like these, sporting tracks like “Glass House” that have bolstered the band’s ability to play such modest venues to an entirely immodest fan-base.

“Anges Martin,” another track off All At Once, is a perfect example of the evolution that occurs during Females’ fervent live gigs. On record, the track sounds like what one might imagine being tied to the back of a fender and subsequently dragged through the muck and the mile of a sludgy dirt-road would feel like. It’s muddy and treacherous. Live, these elements are wholly elevated, as all the music-junkies in the front-row can do is feverishly headbang to front-woman Marisa Paternoster’s pummeling guitar, extended solo’s, and guttural vocals.

The task of preventing this whole primitive ritual of performance from collapsing completely is left solely to the steady-as-a-rock drumming of Jarrett Dougherty. Mike Abbate, his rhythmic counterpart, does everything except relieve the barbarism with his rambunctiously crushing basslines. It’s as if at times Paternoster and Abbate are in competition to see who can be the downright dirtiest, and they both win.

Levity was not lost, however, as the Rose Mountain-era track “Hopeless” provided a small dose of tranquility amidst the chaos. Roaring her way through the mid-tempo jaunt, Paternoster growled sentiments such as, “I’m not hopeless, helpless or begging you to stay, It’s just turning out that way” in her nearly indiscernible snarl. Any other gasps of air had to be found in between tracks, as banter was virtually non-existent among both the band and crowd. Instead, those pauses were set-aside for Paternoster to fiddle with and re-weaponize her trademark G&L S-500 ax. Throughout the blistering evening, the Females also burned through other bangers such as “A New Kid” and “I’ll Make You Sorry,” before eventually offering up an appropriately inaudible “thank you” and disappearing into the dead, officially dismal night.

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Though the highlights of the night were inevitably reserved for hometown headliners Pup, for a brief blip on Echo Beach, Toronto belonged to five-dudes known as Twin Peaks. Ripping through an eight song set to a respectable but patchy crowd. The lack of audience crossover between the pop-punkers and garage-rockers was notable and surprising. Sure, we’re talking about two entirely different genres here, but as group entities, both occupy a similarly rock-centric indie-space. The lack of early-birds at the venue gets even more puzzling when one considers that the Chicago based group likely has a slightly larger worldwide following than their counter-parts. In any event (or lack thereof), the seasoned millennial veterans soldiered on, using the gig to springboard songs from their upcoming record Lookout Low into sonic existence.

For a group that could simply turn the amps up to eleven and deliver the more bombastic bangers from their back-catalog in a haze of messy distortion, the mix and performance here was pleasantly intricate and un-muddled. Distinguishing between the altering licks of co-lead guitarists Cadian Lake James and Clay Frankel was both simple and pleasurable, while keyboardist Colin Croom added a sort of Steely-Dan style smoothness from the side-stage.

Twin Peaks are anything but a glorified bar band. New tracks, such as “Oh Mama,” played out like a professional jam session in public. In keeping with new tunes, the night also saw the live debut of “Dance Through It”, the lead single from band’s aforementioned upcoming record. Appropriately groovy and tuneful, the track displays the band’s fullest and most mature sound yet, making for not only a winning single, but a winningly dance-able live anthem. Closing out the set-list was fan-favourite “Strawberry Smoothie”, a fruitful showcase for Jack Dolan’s deep, domineering bass lines and Connor Brodner’s hard-hitting palpitations which pulsated from behind the kit.

While tracks like “Smoothie” and “Wanted You” peppered the show with the odd “hit”, the set-list was such that the passive, middle-of-the-road fan very well could have been at a bit of a loss. The performance was energetically accessible enough to win over newcomers, and featured enough deep cuts extracted from a recent single compilation, titled Sweet 17’ Singles, to satisfy fans of the hardcore persuasion. But those stuck somewhere in between, looking for a “Butterfly” or “Making Breakfast” may have been lost in a self-inflicted personal purgatory. Despite this, for most in attendance, the sandy beach, scarlet sky, and some laid back Rock n’ Roll made for one chill hangout.

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Since signing to Matador Records in 2015, Car Seat Headrest headmaster Will Toledo has used these new-found resources in interesting, inventive ways. First came the acclaimed sister-records of sorts in Teens of Style and Teens of Denial respectively. These efforts were then followed by a boldly and beautifully revamped version of his most renowned low-fi odyssey, Twin Fantasy.  Now, four years later, comes the band’s first live offering in Commit Yourself Completely. A slick collection of 9 tracks performed by 7 band-members at various gigs, stripped bare is the in-studio-mastery, and with it too goes the band’s usual choke-hold on dreary melody and layered introspection.

The record kicks off well enough with the droney, atmospheric opening minutes of “Cosmic Hero.” Brooding and cathartic, the track weaves and winds itself down many dark corridors before crashing to a wild, perhaps bloody halt as Toledo offers a prayer for the suicidal, preaching, “If you need some peace and quiet, there is room for all in heaven.” Another highlight here is “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales.” While slightly meandering and slower than one would expect from the groups true-blue indie-breakthrough single, the keys and guitar tones displayed here are luminous enough for the track to shine brightly in the face of its languorous pace.

Elsewhere, however, the seven-piece simply lacks the musculature flexed throughout much of Toledo’s post-Matador-signing discography. Some of the more abrasive tones and cuts here do so little to penetrate and offend, it’s ultimately kind of offensive. For example, if the studio version of a track such as “Destroyed by Hippie Powers” is a neat glass of Jameson, then the libation showcased here is diluted with enough ice as to not risk inebriating your 95-pound-second-cousin. 

For a collection of performances that more or less attempt to replicate the layered textures of in-studio recordings rather than expand upon them (a funky, underwhelming version of “Fill in the Blank” being the sole exception), the true standout in the track-listing doesn’t even come from the group’s own back-catalog, but rather that of Frank Ocean’s. Covering “Ivy,” all present is Toledo, a guitar, and a passionate vocal as he belts the soulful tune out like a Lou Reed who gives a shit. The performance here may be sparse, but it’s interesting, evocative, and off the beaten path. Proving that if Car Seat Headrest were a little more willing to travel the path less traveled, they may have arrived at a more unique and worthwhile destination. 

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