Chastity – Chains

Listening to the latest EP by Whitby, Ontario’s Chastity, you feel and inspiring level of energy as they turn anger into something constructive. Throughout its few tracks the band offer a tight selection of how far they can take punk, pop and about all the distortion you can fit into a recording. Playing like the love-child of Metz, Savages and the pop of the post-punk movement, this is a record that is catchy, scary and dirty all at the same time.(Northern Transmissions)

Dvsn – Morning After

Earlier this month, the entire OVO label made a surprise announcement, putting up billboards at Toronto’s Eaton Center to reveal upcoming albums from Majid Jordan, PARTYNEXTDOOR, Roy Wood$ and DVSN. Unfortunately, none of the projects came with a concrete release date, with the label opting instead for a more general “fall 2017” window. However, DVSN has been increasingly active on social media, and last week the duo shared the film-poster inspired album artwork to their Morning After project. With sun-drenched imagery that wouldn’t look out of place at the Cannes Film Festival, the credits include the supporting cast of Noah “40” Shebib, Aubrey “Drake” Graham, Olever El Khatib, Paul “Nineteen85” Jeffries, and Daniel Daly (the latter two make up DVSN). (HotNewHipHop)

No Warning – Torture Culture

It is hard to describe how perfect the production is on Torture Culture. It exists on the golden edge of nostalgic intensity, contemporary brutality, and a sound that was embodied by a band that put Toronto on the map of underground hardcore proper. While the band may have burned brightest before their quiet dissolution in 2005, this LP is a clear signifier that the group is ready to take on the world in glorious heaviness. Recorded in an Ontarian native reserve and Toronto’s east end, the album plays like an unholy indictment of the ills facing that city today while appealing to the citizens of urban blights across the globe.(Pure Grain Audio)

Sean Nicholas Savage – Yummycoma

Within the improbable outcome in which romance comes together in full reciprocation at a singular instance, there exists an intricate artistic inspiration in this rare moment of soulful sentimentalism. Enter Canadian art-pop/R&B singer-songwriter Sean Nicholas Savage. Savage has maintained a low profile while establishing himself as one of the hidden gems of pop music.(Riff Magazine)

Stars – There Is No Love In Fluorescent Light

Since 2000, Stars’ music has cycled through many styles and sounds, from orchestral pop to hyperactive dance-floor numbers. But a clear vision has always remained at its core: The Montreal band writes about love that’s been compromised or curdled or otherwise scuffed-up in the living of lives. An undercurrent of political outrage seeps to the fore every now and then, but the meat of Stars’ music lies in the thorny interpersonal entanglements of lovers who strive — to forget, to remember, to engage and disengage.(NPR)

Terra Lightfoot – New Mistakes

It’s the kind of album that comes with enough time, that takes its perspective from the distance between leaving and letting go, and that trades not only in the rough-hewn moments of acute loss, but the small gratitudes, wry fondness or warm glow of affections past, passing, or still with some promise left unexplored.(CBC)

The Barr Brothers – Queens Of The Breakers

The third album can be crucial for any band. Do they complacently settle into a signature sound they’ve forged, or take the opportunity to up their game in adventurous fashion? It should be no surprise that Montreal- based trio the Barr Brothers took the latter path, given the genre-defying material they created on their self-titled debut and 2014’s breakthrough effort, Sleeping Operator. (Exclaim!)

The Elwins – Beauty Community

The latest LP from Newmarket pop-rockers the Elwins is both exploratory and poppy at the same time. Sounding equal parts like Tokyo Police Club and Bombay Bicycle Club, the band unashamedly embrace modern pop sounds on Beauty Community.(Exclaim!)

The Pack A.D. – Dollhouse

The garage-rock duo, made up of singer/guitarist Becky Black and drummer Maya Miller, recorded this album last summer in their hometown during one of the worst wildfire seasons in the city’s history. The gloomy, smoke-filled atmosphere, combined with the pair’s anxiety over what they see to be the toxic state of world politics, sets the scene for many of the songs on Dollhouse, including its ominous-sounding opener.(CBC)

Better late than never (thank you DarBar)

Rural Alberta Advantage – The Wild

In a very real sense, The Wild proves a descriptive title for this, the fourth album from the Canadian combo The Rural Alberta Advantage. A collection of tunes that came about organically, spun from their work on the road and determination to let the music steer itself rather than the other way around, it’s easily the band’s most expressive effort. As the trio tells it, there was no particular theme or intent involved in its creation, other than the desire to let the songs evolve naturally over time. (Paste Magazine)