DVTR, Klô Pelgag, Les Breastfeeders, and Victime
DVTR - BONJOUR (BIS) (DELUXE EP)
A little over a year ago a Montreal punk duo called DVTR released their debut EP, BONJOUR. The strength of those six songs, an impressive live set, and a rugged touring schedule that saw them cover three continents earning them critical praise around the world and a record deal that allowed them to re-release BONJOUR with an additional five tracks and press it to vinyl. The release is punk perfection with genre bending songs as the duo seamlessly move from ass shaking dance-punk gems like “Pied de poule” to rowdy mosh pit tracks like “Anu Cuni” to art-punk perfection like “Sound $ex Change.” What makes this record so good is the catchiness, it’s an instant classic that you’ll be hitting repeat on for months.
Klô Pelgag - Abracadabra
Klô Pelgag is the stage name of Chloé Pelletier-Gagnon, an incredible singer-songwriter from Montreal who burst out internationally in 2020 with the release of her third album, Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs. Awards and accolades poured in and four years later, Gagnon finally returned with Abracadabra, an album that dropped near the end of 2024 and continued the exquisite art-pop perfection we heard Gagnon deliver on Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs. The tracks on Abracadabra sound massive, they move from pop bangers like “Deux jours et deux nuits” and “Libre,” to soft and subtle nuggets like “Sans visage” or “Le goût des mangues,” to the intense build and eruption found on “Décembre.” It may have taken longer than we wanted but Klô Pelgag’s latest does not disappoint.
Les Breastfeeders - La ville engloutie
After a twelve year hiatus, legendary francophone garage-pop indie darlings, Les Breastfeeders, return with twelve brilliant bangers. Much has changed since they were last active, not all of it for the better. It’s so refreshing to have their blend of garage, rock, surf, and pop back in our lives. These are tracks with an uplifting, highly-danceable vibe that’s perfect to help you tune out the non-stop, doom and gloom news cycles dominating our lives in Canada right now. Forget the world for a bit, hit play on this album in a language you may not know. I don’t know what the lyrical content is about so I like to pretend they’re singing about all the great things in life while I vibe and rock out.
Victime - En conversation avec
Victime return with an incredible album of adventurous sound design that finds the trio pushing the boundaries of what music can be. Strange blips and bloops make up rhythmic components that are artistically modern and futuristic to the ear. Over these odd sounds the band excels by crafting industrial noise. I’m not referring to industrial music but rather noise heard in an industrial setting. It reminds me of sounds I’ve heard my entire career spent on job sites —grinders, saws, metal on metal hammering, it’s all there over the modern electronic components and it gives a dark human feel to the compositions. Topping it all off is some gorgeous vocal work that lightens the compositions and makes everything work impeccably.
- Jeff MacCallum