Hamilton’s soul piercing, ear-gnashing rock ’n roll trio Captain WildChild embodies the perfect blend of raw, raspy vocals, gripping lyrics, bombastic drums, and unforgettable riffs. They’re often compared to bands like The Dirty Nil, Single Mothers, and PUP, sprinkled with a helping of weird and in-your-face energy. Born from their devotion of creating music together, Chad Chartrand (guitar, vocals) and Nigel Stewart (drums) established the band as a duo in early 2018.

Their first song off their debut full length LP, Infinite Pleasure, is a rollercoaster of a tune called “Fantasy.” The contrast in the instrumental parts between the verses and choruses are very deliberate. It’s a mosh-dance-mosh-dance song, and the feel changes to keep the energy continuously feeding into the next section.

The video, from the shooting to the editing, was done by the band. There’s something to be said for a song about riches and fantasies that is coated in humourous, do-it-yourself artwork. You can see the imperfections of the video are perfect for the song. 

Infinite Pleasure was recorded with producer Mickey Ellsworth (Walk Off The Earth, Shawn Mendes) and releases on August 20, 2022. The album is poised to be a wild ride, full of grit and intensity while still being playful.

Carter & the Capitals are a high energy five-piece funk group from Edmonton, Alberta. Known for their signature, hard-driving sound, soulful vocals, and catchy instrumental riffs, the Capitals fuse the most danceable elements of the pop and funk genres. By bottling up deep grooves from their wide range of influences and combining them with tight, snappy arrangements, the band offers its own unique take on Western Canadian funk.

Following up on their 2019 self-titled debut album, Carter & the Capitals return with “Lovely Lovely Lovely,” a joyful new track that serves as a reminder for the band to not take themselves so seriously and to enjoy the privilege of playing music with some of their best friends. With lots of growing pains and mistakes over the past years, the Capitals have become closer while making the best music they’ve ever made.

Saint-Sauveur, Québec’s borza is sharing a new release entitled “As high as you can go,” dedicated to reminding listeners that an abundance of love is possible, so it’s worth taking chances.

The track began as a folk song before morphing into the distorted guitars and sweet harmonies of the finished song, creating an energetic and uplifting number meant to elicit excitement in ourselves.

Love can be the energy that propels us forward and allows us to move through nervousness, opening up life changing possibilities.

“Take all the love in your way and grow as high as you can go.”

On his third solo album, the self-produced Papercut—armed with a couple lifetimes of songwriting and touring in his rear view mirror—Carleton Stone gets honest about the toll of devotion to craft while illustrating his mastery of it. Through sax-blasted Americana, power-pop laced with ‘80s synth, and dreamy, sophisticated pop melodies, the Nova Scotia songwriter blurs genres to explore a tumultuous few years and some of the scariest questions someone can ask: “What the hell have I done? What if I’d gone down some other path?”

His new song, “House in the Hills” encapsulates the feeling of accepting that we are enough with what we have in our lives. It feels like the media or internet is always trying to sell us something to help improve our lives or make us feel like we aren’t enough, and Carleton Stone is trying to counterbalance that feeling with this song. 

With this song, Carleton really wanted the lyrics and the message of the song to stand out so he kept the production as simple as possible with just enough to help support the story. When the song was written in early 2020, the pandemic wasn’t even a thing that was on most people’s radar at that point. The pandemic only highlighted the feelings in the chorus of this song and reminded us what is truly essential in our lives.

“We wrote this song in the first few days of 2020,” says Carleton. “I remember waking up and checking Instagram and seeing that the U.S. had assassinated a general in Iran and thought ‘Oh wow, this doesn’t seem good,’ and then scrolled down and saw the next piece of news was that Post Malone had got a new face tattoo. I thought the juxtaposition of these two stories encapsulated so much of what is wrong with the ‘click-bait’ world we live in.”

For the band, writing music is a very therapeutic experience. They try to write songs about the things they are struggling with, and mix them with fun upbeat melodies as a good way to blow off some steam and gain some perspective. 

Their reflective song, “Devils Working Late,” was inspired by singer Greg Chomut (a.k.a. Luke Warm) and his experience with becoming a father. It was a major transition for him to have everything revolve around caring for somewhere else. 

It’s a common feeling to miss going out with your friends and just having fun, especially in the early days of being a parent. Even though Greg loves his children and family deeply, he found that on the rare occasion that he got a chance to go out with friends, he would try to make it last as long as possible – staying out way too late and usually not getting home until the next morning. He would feel really bad about it after, thinking that there was something wrong with him, but he realized it’s probably a pretty normal feeling after such a big change. 

The song is basically saying to listeners, “So this wasn’t your best day. Don’t beat yourself up. It’s just part of life.” Hopefully people can associate with the lyrics and if they know the feeling it can give them a little comfort.

Jazz vocalist and songwriter Eva Schubert is a fresh new voice, whose sound blends seamlessly with the classic style of jazz greats like Helen Mirrell, Peggy Lee, and Nat King Cole.  

Her fourth album, The Feel of Your Love, is a sultry, hypnotic collection of songs that effortlessly shift the colour of your mood. Beautiful piano stylings, guitar riffs and saxophone grooves mix classic jazz sounds with a distinctly modern sonic palette. 

Eva was inspired to write the wistful and haunting “Dark Star” one summer evening when she was walking in the park and heard a man singing in a distinctly Latin style. As she walked on, a few of those notes began echoing in her mind, and she started adding to them. 

However, when she brought this song to her producer, he wasn’t really sure how to arrange it. They ended up heading into the studio without any rough arrangement prepared, though they had sketches of all the other songs on the album. Eva just walked up to the mic and sang the lyrics a capella in the studio, for the other musicians. There was complete silence. 

Then, when she sang it again, they started to play along… And right there the song blossomed in front of them, like a flower emerging from the soil and maturing in mere minutes.