Tunes that move you

SELF-TITLED
Candelora
Indie
7-out-of-10

Calgary based Candelora released their self-titled debut record in May of 2011.

Forming in the winter of 2006, this alt-rock quartet hits all the right notes on their long awaited first effort.

Bright guitar riffs intertwine with light and playful piano melodies throughout the disc and a heavy bass line keeps it all in check.

Catchy rhythmic drums drive each song forward and force the listener to move along with every track.

Strings are a frequent guest on this record but thankfully aren't taken overboard, sporadically appearing just when they're needed.

Singer Mike Ferraro's vocals tie all of the pieces together into a very nice package. With a slight dusting of grit and growl, Ferraro's voice is a perfect match to the heavy direction this band has adopted.

Although this record is very similar to other albums in this particular genre, I was pleasantly surprised that each track kept its own unique identity without straying too far from a main musical theme. Pick up this album if you're looking for something different, melodic, and sure to make you move.

- SEAN CRAIB-PETKAU

STRICTLY WHATEVER
Harry Manx & Kevin Breit
Stony Plain Records
9-out-of-10

Harry Manx and Kevin Breit have once again teamed up to release an incredibly funky and melodically brilliant blues album for Stony Plain Records. With this being their third collaboration and second release for Stony Plain, these guys have a definite chemistry and a certain jive.

Manx and Breit, each a blues legend in their own right, have successfully blurred the lines of what some conceive conventional blues to be. The oddball instrumentation, percussive rhythms, smooth guitar hooks and classic bluesy vocals all combine so tastefully that they become one, easy to consume entity.

Together, with an arsenal of guitars including acoustics, electrics, a baritone, a lap steel, a National steel, as well as a mandolin, banjo, electric sitar, and Manx's Mohan Veena (a 20 stringed guitar) these two musicians have created an album so colourful, intricate, eclectic, and void of cliche that it was difficult to stop listening.

As I strolled through this album, I found myself constantly getting lost in the genius guitar melodies that emanate from each track. The short instrumental 'Note To Self' is an eerie, haunting, sounds-cape crafted by a National steel and baritone guitars which leads perfectly in to 'Do Not Stand at My Grave and Weep', an epic bursting at the seams with incredible lead guitar lines and heavy lyrics.

The last third of the record is lifted with 'Little Ukelele', a light and easy tune that features some familiar blues licks and rhythm. At this point I finally became comfortable with not expecting anything. Each track carries its own musical influence, it's own cultural feel, it's own balance of east meets west. "Dance With Delilah" could have been a typical country shuffle, until the scarce, booming percussion and heavily Hawaiian influenced slide guitar appeared. I just sat back and enjoyed the rest of the ride.

The album closes perfectly with the smooth, clean ballad 'Carry My Tears Away'. A mandolin weaves its way from beginning to end, and the National Steel makes a modest reappearance. Finally, it was something standard that I could dig into, and it came right at the end.

I was left wondering what I had just experienced. It wasn't a "blues" record, or "folk", or "rock". It was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. An intense mingling of genres, styles, grooves, rhythms, all under the undeniable umbrella of the Blues. It seems Manx and Breit simply recorded Strictly Whatever moved them at the time, and I'm sure glad they did.

- SEAN CRAIB-PETKAU