Songs of the Week: September 22 - 28, 2025

“The Bridge” by Bahamas

This week Bahamas announced a new album titled My Second Last Album (I sure hope it’s not!) and released the first track from it, “The Bridge”.

His previous album Bootcut saw Afie lean into country music, and if this new track is any indication, we’re getting back to classic Bahamas sound. Featuring light flute and catchy bass licks, the dreamy tune is accompanied by an equally dreamy video featuring his family walking and frolicking along the water together.

The new album will be released on October 24th and I cannot wait to hear the rest of the music!

• Christine

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“Rusty Mountain” by Neko Case

Neko Case released her new album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, last Friday and ahead of that gave one last tease with “Rusty Mountain”.

The new single is a gorgeous, sprawling song with Case’s iconic voice joined by swirling strings, as she insists “We all deserve better than some love song.”

Neon Grey Midnight Green is available now everywhere, and this week Case embarks on a massive North American tour, which includes a show here at the Vogue on November 13!

• Kirk

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“Skin Of My Teeth” by The Strumbellas

The Stumbellas new song “Skin Of My Teeth” follows up the singles “Hard Lines” and “Maybe It’s Me” from their recently announced new EP Burning Bridges Into Dust (due October 24).

The band’s Dave Ritter says: “‘Skin of My Teeth’ is about how it feels to hold tight to a dream. Obstacles, doubts, and disappointments make you want to quit. They make your dreams feel heavy, or worse, ridiculous, like everyone can see that you’re a fool to keep trying. But hope clings like a spider’s thread, and as the creeping keys and spy-movie guitars break into the chorus, we feel the grit and determination that convinces you never to give up.”

The band is hitting the road to celebrate the new album starting in November, and the Vancouver stop is on December 7th at the Commodore Ballroom.

• Christine

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“Burn After Reading” by Dust Cwaine

Speaking of new album released last week, Vancouver’s Dust Cwaine released their latest Twin Lakes, and celebrated with a new video for “Burn After Reading”

The song follows the album’s theme of thoughtful, introspective lyrics informed by Cwain’s past, paired with incredibly catchy music; the chorus for this one will be stuck in your head all day.

Check out the video below, directed by Cole Schmidt, and make sure to catch the Dust Cwain album release party this Thursday (Oct 2) at the Fox Cabaret!

• Kirk

Songs of the Week: August 10 - 17, 2025

“Winchester Mansion of Sound” by Neko Case

I am so excited for the new album from Neko Case, and last week we got the latest tease of it, with the new single “Winchester Mansion of Sound”

The gorgeous piano-driven song is inspired by Case’s late friend & collaborator Dexter Romweber of the Flat Duo Jets, though it was originally written two years before his passing. Case wrote in her recent memoir The Harder I Fight, The More I Love You, the first time she heard Romweber’s group, “something unlocked in her that day, the way making music could become a physical manifestation of the blazing wild horse energy inside of her body.” Calling it “not a romantic love, but an all-consuming one”

The new album, Neon Grey Midnight Green, comes out September 26th, and Case is embarking on a lengthy tour after its release, including a stop here at The Vogue Theatre on November 13!

• Kirk

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“Ordinary Dreamers” by Jets Overhead

It’s been over a decade since we last heard from Victoria BC’s Jets Overhead, but last week they released a brand new song… sort of.

“Ordinary Dreamers” is an unreleased track, written around 2011 with their Boredom and Joy album, and is the first single from the band’s archive project that will see them releasing old songs, rarities, and demos from their “vaults” over the next couple years.

The song is (appropriately enough) a dreamy throwback, so have a listen below!

• Kirk

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“Keep On Breaking My Heart” by Yukon Blonde

We’re creeping closer the the release date for Yukon Blonde’s new album Friendship & Rock ‘N’ Roll - which is due out September 19th!

The latest single “Keep On Breaking My Heart” has a bittersweet story behind the making of it (as a photographer, this story broke my heart [get it?]):

“The song was the first track band member Jeffrey Innes (guitar, vocals, keys) wrote on his Rickenbacker 12-string, a guitar he’d dreamed of owning for years. “I was listening to a lot of bands like the Byrds and Tom Petty,” he explains, “so when a ’90s Rickenbacker 12 came up at my local pawnshop, I kinda had to have it.” The only hitch? He didn’t have the money. To make it happen, he sold his beloved Leica M3 film camera, a fixture in his life since Yukon Blonde's On Blonde album era. “It was kind of heartbreaking,” he admits. The camera had travelled the world with him, capturing “many beautiful people and bands in many beautiful places…
Once the guitar was in his hands, he was flooded with conflicting emotions: “I couldn’t decide if I had made a huge mistake, so my only course of action was to write some damn good music on it.”… Within 20 minutes of picking it up, he had the bones of "Keep On Breaking My Heart". “I’d like to imagine that the lyrical motif was partly inspired by the break-up of my camera, and 60 years of jangly, rock ’n’ roll heartbreak. It just came out this way, and I’m happy it did.”

If you want to hear these songs live, the band is performing at “Flats Fest” on September 6th, and then they’re taking the album on tour in September.

• Christine

Songs of the Week: July 07 - 13, 2025

“Bars and BBQs” by Shad

Well, I found my “Song Of The Summer”!

Shad released the track “Bars and BBQs” off his newly announced album Start Anew, and while it’s mellow and breezy, it’s chock full of Shad’s classic wordplay. (My favourite being right off the top with “I’m a free spirit. Like open bars with booze.”)

The press release says: “The first verse is all playful lyricism, but the second adds layers of meaning. From the positive aspects of bars (lyrics) and BBQs (food and community) to a contrast in language: “Sickness in every CELL and there’s more addiction/From what’s stored in kitchens to us stored in prisons/That’s BARS and BBQ's”.”

The album (out October 31) is “a project about embracing change, challenging comfort zones, and seeking renewal amidst uncertainty” - which I think a LOT of people can relate to. I cannot wait to hear more of it.

• Christine

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“Wreck” by Neko Case

Neko Case is back! Last week the iconic singer released a brand new song, “Wreck” and announced her first new album since 2018’s Hell On.

“Wreck” is a soaring new track, a great tease for the album, entitled Neon Grey Midnight Green, which was largely recorded live off the floor in Neko’s own studio in Vermont. Case produced the album herself, saying: “There are so few producers who are women, nonbinary, or trans. People don’t think of us as an option. I’m proud to say I produced this record. It is my vision. It is my veto power. It is my taste.”

You can pick up the new album, Neon Grey Midnight Green on September 26, and Neko Case will be hitting the road with her band this fall for a lengthy tour, including a stop here in Vancouver at the Vogue Theatre.

• Kirk

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“Neon Cowgirl” feat. Neil Finn by Tami Neilson

Canadian-born, New Zealand-based artist Tami Neilson has released the title track from her album Neon Cowgirl, (referencing the large neon cowgirl on Broadway in Nashville) which was released this past Friday.

The song features Neil Finn (of Crowded House) and the story of what Neil and the band meant to Tami is a beautiful one:
"I wish I could time travel and play this song for past versions of myself.

The teenager sleeping on the floor on a mattress after her family band had lost everything. She got a job at the makeup counter of a local pharmacy. Her small paycheque supported all five of them for a while. “Fall at Your Feet” by Crowded House played multiple times a day through the pharmacy speakers. She sang the harmony quietly, feeling defeated and wondering if she’d ever be in music again.

The 27 year old who sat in the audience with her brother Jay in the darkness of Toronto’s Massey Hall, listening to Neil Finn and his brother Tim sing “Disembodied Voices", a song about siblings. She grabbed Jay's hand while they both cried, knowing she was moving across the world to New Zealand in just a few weeks.

2 decades later, I walked through the doors of the Ryman Auditorium to fulfill a lifelong dream of performing on that stage for the first time. Neil had invited me to open for Crowded House - the Kiwis invading Nashville! Jay was by my side, my husband and children in the wings, the Finns watching side stage, the audience were on their feet and the Neon Cowgirl shone down on us all." 

• Christine

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“Naive” by Softcult

Ontario-based sibling duo Softcult released their latest single last week, “Naive”.

The new track is a dreamy, shoegaze vibe, with the band elaborating, “It’s about coming to the painful realization that the person, idea, or reality we trusted and believed in never really existed in the first place. This song is about the moment the scales fall from our eyes after we realize we’ve been romanticising someone or the idea of someone. After this moment we’re no longer able to see them or the world as innocently as we did before.”

You can check out the moody video below, and keep an eye out for when they hit The Pearl here in Vancouver on October 16!

• Kirk

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“A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth” by Mappe Of

Of course I’m going to immediately listen to a song called “A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth”.

The new track is the latest from Mappe Of — moniker of “multi-disciplinary, multi-instrumentalist and musical visionary” Tom Meikle — and comes with the announcement of a new album, Afterglades, which is an “experimental sci-fi-folk record about reckoning with the end of the world alongside the people you love.”

“A Scourge Laid Upon The Earth” swings wildly from eerily calm to chaotic post-rock, and was the last song written for the album, as Tom explains, “It felt like there needed to be a sense of weight to this chapter of the story, there needed to be some chaos as a payoff for all of this reflection. This is in many ways the extinction level event. It needed to be heavy and raucous, retribution for all of our mistakes. It’s a bit of my dormant heavy metal energy emerging from me.”

They released a a performance of the song filmed live at Catherine North, and you can grab the new album Afterglades when it’s out on September 19 via Paper Bag Records

• Kirk

Songs of the Week: April 18 - 24, 2022

“In Your Corner (for Scott Hutchison)” by Dan Mangan

Get ready for a heavy one from Dan Mangan. As you may guess from the title, “In Your Corner (for Scott Hutchison)” was written for the former frontman of Frightened Rabbit — who tragically passed away in 2018 — and is a direct response to their song “The Woodpile”.

Dan says “We’d only met once but Scott’s passing eviscerated me. He was my age and very close with several dear friends of mine. Either he couldn't see how deeply he was loved by the world, or he didn’t feel worthy of it. How come he could bring joy to so many people but not to himself? I remember weeping as I poured cereal for my boys that morning. This song came very quickly in the days that followed.”

Have a listen to the song below (perhaps with some tissues on hand) and be on the lookout for Dan in your town, as he starts a Canadian tour this week — with a pair of dates here in Vancouver on May 11 & 12!

• Kirk

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“Oh, Shadowless” by Neko Case

Surprise! This past Friday Neko Case released a digital retrospective of her entire career, consisting of 22 of the “most impactful tracks from her discography” as well as one new song, “Oh, Shadowless”.

The new song features a delightfully animated video by Laura Plansker, who also did artwork for the entire Wild Creatures album, which you can see on the website here.

Alongside the new artwork for each track, there are a series of short essays and track-by-track commentary from long time collaborators A.C. Newman, Dan Bejar, and M. Ward to David Byrne, Shirley Manson, Jeff Tweedy and Rosanne Cash, and a ton more!

• Kirk

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“Not Today” by Partner

“Not Today” by Partner was released last week on 4/20 and how appropriate for a rock ballad style tune.
The band wrote some songs, including this one, from their new album on Gabriola Island here in BC in 2020. T

They said that because they missed playing shows so much a lot of the songs ended up sounding like arena rock - and I’m not mad about it.
I can’t wait to hear even more!

• Christine

Song of the Day: April 11, 2018 -- "Bad Luck" by Neko Case

Stop what you're doing, there's a new song out from Neko Case. 

"Bad Luck" is off her brand new album Hell-On, and recording the vocals of the song came just off the heels of "a surreal 3am call informing her that her house was burning and would likely be completely destroyed" according to the press release.

The new album is out June 1st on Anti- and you can check out "Bad Luck" below! 

Song of the Day: May 12, 2016 - "Delirium" by case/lang/veirs

Power trio case/lang/veirs, gave us another tease of their upcoming album this week with the fourth song from the self-titled release, "Delirium". 

"At first we thought what can we possibly write about, we don't even know each other, there were no themes," Veirs says. "So k.d. and I were having trouble writing and went on a walk. We saw this firework stand and we started looking at the names of the different fireworks, and one of them was called 'Delirium.' We were like, 'that's a good song title,' and we started building. [Neko] came in and, of course, [she] has a way of making everything great. She can even use one word to totally transform a song. We were writing things like 'the walls are falling in,' you know, trying to find a way of saying this person is in a delirious state. She said 'kaleidoscoping in,' and I was like, that's it! One word and the chorus went from cliché to magical."

case/lang/veirs comes is out June 17th on Anti-, and they'll be at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre for Vancouver International Jazz Fest on June 29th. 

Song of the Day: March 04, 2016 - "Atomic Number" by case/lang/veirs

Sometimes supergroups... well, they don't quite live up to the sum of their parts. But other times, boy do they ever. case/lang/veirs is the stunning combination of (you guessed it) Neko Case, k.d. lang, and Laura Veirs. The collaboration started as a whim when lang emailed the other two simple saying "I think we should make a record together."  And even though the three of them were acquaintances at best, Case and Veirs replied immediately to say yes, because of course they would. 

The result is a 14-track self titled album, and if the lead single "Atomic Number" is any indication, it is going to be a magnificent display of their individual talents intertwining for something beautiful.