Concert Reviews

Dan Bejar’s Destoryer is one of Western Canada’s biggest names in indie rock. Recording music for over twenty five years, Destroyer’s lush instrumentation and whimsical lyricism has seen many different genre shifts over the years, spanning from indie-folk to synth-heavy art pop, as Bejar and band navigate shifting inspirations and moods. 

Not much can convince me to go out on a Sunday night, let alone out of my immediate neighbourhood, and above that, after I spent the day moving all my belongings to a new apartment. However, this particular late March Sunday promised a truly jam-packed show of slowcore legends, exhilarating DJs, and up-and-coming rock bands. So, trying to ignore my lumbar pain, I headed out for the night to witness Ciel Noir, a one-day festival produced by Blue Skies Turn Black, featuring five acts you’ll likely never see on the same bill again.

“It's so cruel what your mind can do,” a deep-cut lyric sung by R&B and Soul singer Arlo Parks, has been one of many phrases from the artists’ discography that has vastly resonated with Gen Z’s complex lives. In pure honesty and comfort, Park’s music crafts hardships and catastrophe in a mosaic of connection to one’s body and mind, emphasizing a message of collectivity, originality and self-empowerment.

Otoboke Beaver is a Japanese Punk band from Kyoto and one of my favourite bands of all time. According to its members, the band performs a "fast-paced and aggressive style of punk-rock" with "frequent changes in rhythm and tempo" and "gang vocals". They have a plethora of personal music influences, including Japanese rock, hardcore punk, and Japanese pop music. Their music features a combination of all of them, representing musical innovation.

On the rainy eve of Friday, March 15th, soulful singer-songwriter Allison Russell graced her motherland of Montreal at Studio TD. Russell’s presence in the music industry has flourished within the last few months following the release of her second studio album The Returner on September 8th, 2023 and Grammy win for her song, “Eve Was Black” in February. Russell has since gained significant praise for the album's integrity to its “expression of black liberation,” self-love and trust in life’s journey.

Post-punk is a very broad genre of music. After emerging from punk in the late 70s in the United Kingdom, it saw punk rock mixed with several other elements from different genres that were unconventional within the punk context.