Winnipeg isn’t the first place that comes to mind when you think of the Canadian music scene, but there’s a good case for bumping it a bit higher on your list. The city has produced some amazing bands over the years: the Guess Who (and spin-off BTO), Propaghandi (and spin-off the Weakerthans), and a little artist named Neil Young. Comeback Kid represents the heavier side of the ‘Peg, and has carried on the city’s DIY punk tradition. “There’s always been a healthy underground following for the punk hardcore kind of thing,” says Comeback Kid guitarist Jeremy Hiebert. “I’m 34 years old and it’s never been super hard to find people who book local stuff throughout the years. There’s still kids doing that, renting community centres or whatever.”

The band has since moved out of the rec centres and onto a massive tour—three back-to-back tours, actually—spanning Canada, the U.S., Europe, Australia, and South America. For the Canadian leg, dubbed the “Through the Noise Tour,” they’re joined by fellow punks Mad Ball—a band whose music influenced the band’s transition to hardcore in the ‘90s—A Wilhelm Scream, Living With Lions, and Devil In Me. The tour started in Victoria, and the bands have been working their way east, playing a mix of big cities and small towns.

“There [are] places that we’ve played before that have always been great for us that we’re stoked to get back to. On the Canadian run in particular we’re doing some cities we haven’t hit before,” Hiebert says. “Being a small town kid myself, I kind of look forward to playing these smaller cities and bigger towns for the first time. They don’t get shows quite as often, so kids are usually pretty stoked, especially if it’s Friday or Saturday night and there’s nothing else going on in town.”

The band is touring in support of their fourth album, Symptoms + Cures, which was released August 31 on Distort Records.

“We don’t really sit down and say ‘We want to write this kind of a record’ or ‘This worked for us before so we should try to capitalize on this kind of thing,'” Hiebert says. “We just come up with the ideas that we have song by song and it just kind of all comes together as a record.”

Sure, the music’s hard-hitting, but it’s got a pretty wide range of song styles, from chant-along anthems like “G.M. Vincent and I” (Hiebert’s favourite song to play live) to speedy, frantic tracks like “Crooked Floors.”

“You’ll hear songs that are a lot heavier, you’ll hear more melodic songs—it’s just kind of all over the place,” Hiebert says. “But it represents where we are musically as a whole.”

Losing any member is tough on a band, but the departure of a lead singer can be career ending. At the very least, it changes the band’s sound; it’s not hard to hear the difference between Black Sabbath with Osborne versus Dio, or Van Halen with Hagar instead of Roth. When Comeback Kid singer Scott Wade left the band in 2006, guitarist Andrew Neufield stepped up to replace him. Symptoms + Cures is his second album on vocals, (following 2007’s Broadcasting…). However, this album has given him the opportunity to come into his own.

“With the last record I think the focus was picking up where Scott left off. We didn’t want to have a completely different vocal style, but at the same time Andrew is not Scott Wade,” Hiebert says. “In the last three or four years that he’s been fronting the band, he’s developed his own style with Comeback Kid. He wanted to have that vocal style that he does live a lot more on the record.”

And it shows; the Comeback Kid on Symptoms + Cures have not only adapted—they’ve matured.

“We didn’t know it would get to this point,” says Hiebert of the band’s success.

But if their 11-week tour is any indication of their work ethic, it shouldn’t be a surprise. It doesn’t hurt that they can shred, too.

Comeback Kid is playing at Le Studio Juste Pour Rire on September 25. Tickets are $20.

The eighth studio album from Luke Doucet, and the second to feature The White Falcon, Steel City Trawler is an unabashed portrait of the magic in the everyday. The album’s straightforward guitar riffs and upbeat melodies, combined with Doucet’s earnest lyrics, form an enjoyable and thoughtful record.

 

From start to finish, Doucet coasts through a journey of observations about life, love, and the world around him, presenting his findings earnestly and sometimes ironically. The title of the album pays homage to Doucet’s new home of Hamilton, Ontario. The city’s blue-collar roots are represented in his lyrics, particularly in the song “Thinking People.”

 

On other tracks like “Dusted” and “The Ballad of Ian Curtis,” Doucet tackles heavier issues: suicide, existential crises, and the creative legacy one leaves behind. But the album is also fun, and Doucet’s humour shines through on “Love and a Steady Hand” and “Dirty Dirty Blonde.” Lyrically, the combination of heavy and light subject matter balances the album, and the themes of introspection and reflection tie the songs together. If you’re looking for an upbeat but grounded album for the onset of cold nights and turning colours, this is the record for you.

Nowadays the Internet can be used for everything, including finding up-and-coming stars.

 

This Wednesday, local Internet sensation Brittany Kwasnik will perform an acoustic set at Le Cagibi. The 16-year-old singer-songwriter made her online debut about two years ago and is now signed to Montreal-based Justin Time Records, with her first album, I Don’t Know Me, set to be released in January.

 

Kwasnik’s success story has humble beginnings. Given a guitar when she was just nine, she taught herself to play via the Internet.  She then began writing music and lyrics.

 

“I would write [music] when no one was home,” Kwasnik says. “I did it secretly because I thought I sucked. But one day I was caught by my friends and mom, and they started making me sing for them. I then started doing open mic nights.”

 

After recording a song at a studio in Montreal, her friends got a hold of the MP3 and uploaded it to YouTube with a picture of her. After three days it had amassed close to 37,000 hits.

 

The teen’s indie sound and heartfelt lyrics appeal in a way that is hard to pinpoint. It seems to always come down to her “rawness.” That’s not to say that her songs are unfinished, but they avoid the clutter that most people associate with modern pop songs (read: auto tune., synthesized beats, etc.). Her songs are carried by her lyrics and her voice’s subtle maturity.

 

“When I’m doing an acoustic show, I can be very acoustic,” Kwasnik says, “But when it’s produced, I like to call it relevant pop. To me, that means the angst and honesty of indie music with the fun of pop and electro pop. It’s a fusion between that. A lot of my stuff is indie, but when it’s produced it’s much more electro pop.”

 

Though Kwasnik’s musical influences include Tegan & Sara, Taylor Swift, and Colbie Caillat, her personal background is more relevant to her sound.

 

“A lot of my music is because of a foundation I’ve created called Nobody Knows,” Kwasnik says. “It’s to help people who live with siblings or parents who are mentally ill. When I was younger I lived with someone with a mental illness, and my music helps me express and deal with it. In the future I want to start a house for those people, someone and somewhere they can call to ask for help or just talk. “

 

However, there is more to her inspiration. What makes her songs so relatable isn’t just their emotional value-it’s also their candor.

 

“I’m also just a really big observer of other people,” she says. “I can just be walking down the street, and see other people, or my friend walking down the street and that can be inspiration as well.”

 

 

 

Brittany Kwasnik is playing a free show at Le Cagibi on Wednesday, September 15. Visit www.brittanykwasnik.com for more information.

Comprised of lead singer and guitarist Jeremy Gaudet, drummer Andrew Woods, Isaac Neily on keyboard and Richard MacLeod on bass, Boxer the Horse is a home-grown Canadian band with lots of kick. The boys hail from Charlottetown, where the music is crude and the coastal vibe is real.

After the release of their self-titled demo shortly followed by their EP, “The Late Show,” the band gained a strong following in the Maritimes. With the national release of their first full-length album, Would You Please, the band is slowly moving west and making waves beyond their island home.

The band’s ability to shoot straight and maintain a clearly defined sound should never be underrated. There is never too much going on at one time, making it easy to focus on the distinct components of each song. Loud and clear, they master their own sound, and give a kind shout out to Montreal between the up-beat blasts in “Pot Valiant.”

These boys are fresh and hold lots of potential. Would You Please is fun to listen to, and the band’s honest sound is a fresh addition to the indie rock scene. Contrary to the title of their first track, I’m finding it hard to see any “Bad Apples” in this bunch.

At first glance, the new Iron Maiden album reads like an epitaph. But the British heavy metal giants are very much alive, kicking, and rocking out.

When their latest album, Final Frontier, was announced many began to worry that this would be the last we’d hear of Iron Maiden. Lyrics in the opening number seem to signal a farewell: “I have lived my life to the full / I have no regrets / But I wish I could talk to my family / To tell them one last goodbye.”

Thankfully, the album is set on an expanding frontier, not a terminal one. Final Frontier satisfies with the usual Maiden blend of driving, layered performances and powerful lyrics, and still pushes forward as a modern album. Contemporary topics such as consumerism and the media are explored in fantastical, historical, and supernatural allegories. The guitar riffs and solos are edgier than we’re used to, and the experiment pays off.

Final Frontier is a solid entry in an already impressive Maiden catalogue. It’s definitely worthy of multiple listens and head-banging sessions. Highlights include the electrifying single “El Dorado,” the anthemic “Coming Home,” and, of course, “When the Wild Wind Blows”-an instant Maiden classic,. The monumental final song runs 11 minutes, but in typical Maiden fashion, leaves you wanting much more.

In celebration of Priority Records’ 25th anniversary, hip-hop legend Snoop Dogg runs through his catalogue of West Coast favourites in The West Coast Blueprint. With a few well-placed interludes, Snoop guides the album along like a radio DJ, providing insight and commentary on California hip-hop’s golden age. Blueprint has tracks that any casual hip-hop fan will recognize and also includes some forgotten gems. Tracks like “Pay Ya Dues” by Low Profile and “Playaz Club” by Rappin’ 4-Tay have bass and G-Funk vibes, but they failed to earn the universal respect that “Eazy-Duz-It” and “Alwayz Into Somethin” achieved.

It’s clear that Snoop Dogg put some thought into selecting these tracks, but it’s hardly as comprehensive a tribute as he’d like you to think. Sure, gangsta rap was at its peak from the birth of N.W.A. to the death of Tupac, but since he ignored the 2000s, the album comes off as incomplete and, to be honest, a little lazy. Snoop also filled the album with his own material. Six tracks on the album credit him: three are interludes, two are his own material, and one features his hip-hop posse The Dogg Pound. But then again, what is hip-hop without blatant self-promotion? The rest of the tracks are all well selected. The classics are here, but it’s the unknown songs that make the album shine. Regardless of how much you like hip-hop, The West Coast Blueprint should at least give you a track or two to add to your iPod’s pre-drink playlist.