Pool Party
Some Party is a newsletter sharing the latest in independent Canadian rock'n'roll, curated by Adam White. Each edition explores punk, garage, psych, and otherwise uncategorizable indie rock, drawing lines from proto to post and taking some weird diversions along the way.
PufferStreet Hassle
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Ok, hear me out. I don't know if my state of being reflects some collective societal exhaustion, but I'm feeling punch drunk. Everything, everywhere, seems to have lost the plot, and I'm just teetering through the days. While that's been hell for my extra-curricular productivity (this newsletter in particular), I'm coming to enjoy the freewheeling unreality of it. In that headspace (or lack thereof), I keep running into new punk records that both sound great and feel right. I don't have enough of a grasp on reality, let alone the culture, to claim that something's in the air, but I am fucking vibing on this shit, dude.
Montreal punks Puffer are the real deal. On a textbook level, they're not all that different from the street-level punk I've written about for two decades, but they nail the intangibles. We may be so far beyond the narrative thrust of the genre that we're now free to relish its tropes without the baggage of authenticity. Who has the bandwidth to worry about anachronisms in this economy? I felt the same way about Edmonton's Home Front, and it's perhaps no coincidence that Fucked Up's Jonah Falco has his fingers in both bands.
Falco masters the 11-song Street Hassle from recordings Puffer made and mixed themselves. In the album's press matter, he identifies a particularly Québécois character as essential to the band's alchemy, stating:
"This is Belgium with snowmobiles, Catholic Texas, Ugly France. All the crumbling highways, the coldest beers, and the loudest joints. Guitars do different things in Quebec. Puffer shimmy across the invisible barricade between Montreal and the rest of the world not just as another crop of punks but as the great descendants and inheritors of modern greats like Inepsy's Rock and Roll Babylon and Annihilation Time's II. Loud, brash, unrelenting. You'll go deaf before you get bored of it."
Puffer charges through in a busy clamour of sleazy Mötorhead speed and barked, quasi-intelligible vocals that land somewhere between Slaughter and the Dogs and a kitchen garburator. They move those abrasive elements along with a hooky forward momentum that never seems to wander. It's not punk to call them out on it, but Puffer demonstrates an impressively controlled level of discipline on these songs; Street Hassle is remarkably efficient and dialled in, and that's without a producer to rein the band in.
The album's out now through Brooklyn's Roachleg Records and London's Static Shock. It follows up on 2023's self-titled EP.
Béton ArméRenaissance
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
I understand even less of the vocals on Béton Armé's Renaissance than I do that Puffer record, but that's just my failing as a dirty Anglophone. The Montreal bruisers transcend language, delivering a relentless sense of unity and that collective, fist-pumping joy that Oi! captures like few other genres. Sometimes, the unrestrained glee of a prolonged "woahhhhh" is all you need.
The band's new LP gallops through eleven new songs in just over 20 minutes, ever indebted to the sound of their 80s forebearers but sounding very much of the moment. Label La Vida Es Un Mus offers a few touchstones in the album notes, citing the foundational influence of French Oi! pioneers L'infanterie Sauvage and the landmark Italian compilation Quelli che urlano ancora. My hair's far too long to claim firsthand knowledge of either. Béton Armé doesn't stray far from that core, but they're more focused than reverent. Renaissance doesn't shy from adopting the velocity of Californian hardcore, and while I'm told there are new wave flourishes here, they're hardly at the forefront.
Béton Armé features vocalist Danick Joseph-Dicaire, guitarist Olivier Bérubé Sasseville, bassist Fabio Ciaraldi, and drummer Remi Aubie. The new record follows their 2023 EP Second Souffle.
Negative ChargeNegative Charge
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
There are many bands named Negative Charge in the world, but the only one you need to care about is a hardcore group from Winnipeg. While allegedly comprised of scene vets from "virtually every notable Winnipeg punk band from the past two decades," that's not a list I have. That kills me, as there's nothing this newsletter enjoys more than peppering the reader with a long list of links to long-defunct regional favourites. I'm also not so dorky to throw around the word "supergroup" without evidence, but damn if the Negative Charge doesn't seize that crown on their blistering debut.
The band's 11-song, self-titled LP is available now through Neon Taste Records, carrying the torch of 80s legends like Jerry's Kids and Poison Idea. The label's gleefully confrontational press release lauds the band's "abject ferocity" and their hardcore bona fides, demanding:
"Know that this is no cash-in sequel to those aforementioned greats. This is no hyperbolic blow-hard bullshit. I dare you to try and prove me wrong. One of us will die on this hill and if Negative Charge is my soundtrack it won't be me. Winnipeg Hardcore Now. Winnipeg Hardcore Forever."
Neon Taste has the album out now on cassette and vinyl, all of which boast what may be the gnarliest cover art of the year by @digital_3vil. Between this and that Puffer record, we can safely conclude that the genre's doing just dandy in 2025.
Penny & The PitsLiquid Compactor
Watch "Pool Party" on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
I'm hot and cold on Fredericton's Motherhood. While I appreciate the devil-may-care attitude driving the trio's art rock, they don't exactly tailor their albums for casual listening. Penelope Stevens' new spinoff project Penny & The Pits hits differently. While Liquid Compactor doesn't shy away from spinning a similarly zany wheel of styles, The Pits wrap that dynamism in a cool surf-rock package that goes down easy. Stevens acknowledges this approach in a press release, stating:
"I spent a lot of time making challenging work that would test both myself and the listener. Now, I'm trying to make music that feels good; music that connects the heart to the body."
I shied away from the term a few paragraphs back, but I have no qualms in stating that the band Stevens assembled to pull this off reads like a Maritime underground supergroup. We've heard Megumi Yoshida in a raft of bands, from Dog Day through Century Egg and most recently Shoulder Season. Colleen Coco Collins was half of the esoteric indie duo Construction & Destruction before adventuring off solo. Grace Stratton has roots in the Haligonian post-punk act Nightbummerz and the queer punk act Glitterclit. Stevens further discussed the band's motivation as a reflection of their audience:
"When I was writing these songs, I imagined my closest femme & queer friends right up front, singing along. If I couldn't picture them rocking out, then I would set the idea aside. With this album, I'm trying to manifest the heaviness, the intensity and the joy of our lived experiences."
Videos are available for several of the album's lead singles, including "Headcrusher" and "Montenegro On Ice." Make sure to check out the darkwave surf highlight "Pool Party," celebrated in motion by director Amelia Bailey. The 10-song Liquid Compactor is now available through the Forward Music Group. The new record follows Motherhood's recent LP, Thunder Perfect Mind, issued in January.
Slow DawnSonic Death Flow
Watch "In / Sight" on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Slow Dawn is fucking rad, and I've not given them the attention they deserve. My excuse is impossibly weak - their material isn't readily streamable - but everything they do is right up my alley. With Sonic Death Flow, they've delivered a fever dream of a record worth jumping whatever hoops it takes to listen to - an eight-song set packed with intense density and reverb-laden noise that marries confrontational punk with apocalyptic psychedelia. While the band bombards you in waves of dissonance, they never wander or lose the plot. Jam band noodling isn't Slow Dawn's game, and formless experimentalism doesn't have the teeth they're after.
The new album arrived last month through the niche psychedelia labels Centripetal Force, Cardinal Fuzz, and Psychic Handshake, the latter handling the Canadian pressing. The band's press describes them as "a full-throttle, mind-melting trip—a collision of motorik rhythms, Japanese space-punk, and psychotic guitar noise," providing "a bleak, existential ride through the modern void." Vocalist/guitarist Dan Druff layers cathartic, squelching No Wave atop a tight rhythmic core from drummer Chris D.R. DiLauro and bassist Jesse "Iceman" Winchester. The record finds Slow Dawn's personnel split between Ottawa and Montreal, a circumstance which demonstrably had no ill effect on how well the band gels.
You can view the lead single "In / Sight" in a glitchy, surrealist video on YouTube, with the complete record available to download through Bandcamp. The new album follows 2022's Into the Machine Haus.
Cut CultFirst Three
Watch "Dinosaur" on YouTube - Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Past and present members of the lauded alt-electronica act Holy Fuck have reunited as Cut Cult - a three-piece side-project rooted in grimy-yet-playful noise-punk. The band emerged in June with a three-song cassette plainly labelled as First Three. Each of the collected songs, "Dinosaur," "Lame Horse," and "I Am Cut Cult," arrived accompanied by music videos.
In a press release, Holy Fuck founder Brian Borcherdt detailed the creation of the harrowing "Dinosaur," written and recorded at a cottage in Black Point, Nova Scotia. He revealed:
"We came up with this sort of lumbering monstrous baritone guitar part, something like a scary 'Hella Good'-Neptunes kind of hook. We had the title 'Dinosaur' due to this Godzilla vibe, but no words. I found a rehearsal tape that was perfect - it was still gibberish, but the vibe was right. Being centred around an 808 beat, I knew it'd fit. So I overlaid that take and was done."
Cut Cult features Borcherdt and current Holy Fuck bassist Matt McQuaid, reunited with that project's original drummer Loel Campbell (Wintersleep, Contrived). They're joined on the recording by Màiri Chaimbeul on harp and synth bass. Matt Wiggins (Glass Animals, !!!, Florence and the Machine) mixed the EP with mastering by Matt Colton.
Cut Cult provides a rollicking counterpoint to Borcherdt's far more sedate solo vehicle, Dusted. Holy Fuck last issued the "Ninety-Five" single in 2022, following up on their 2020 LP Deleter.
Rick WhiteAgain
Preview and purchase at Bandcamp
Last month, Eric's Trip legend Rick White delivered Again, a new 14-song collection of solo material. White wears lo-fi psych rock like a glove, and while fans likely know what to expect, the homespun charm of the artist's prolific output never fails to delight. This batch stems from an effort to write, record, and mix a new song daily—a marathon that lasted from January 15 to March 10 of this year, resulting in nearly 60 complete tracks. White acknowledges the workmanlike nature in the album title, admitting it's a process he's employed on and off since the late 80s.
I'd place Again as the proper successor to 2021's Where It's Fine, but to draw that straight of a line ignores six or seven sideroads White explored in the interim. Those include the throwback-hardcore duo OLD, several albums of cover songs, and stylistic exercises like the new wave Music Box and the feedback-drenched De-Evolution EPs.
The past few years have found the artist's fate intertwined with that of the surviving members of The Sadies. Rick issued a full LP worth of cover songs in 2022 as a tribute to the late Dallas Good. He joined guitarist/vocalist Travis Good, bassist Sean Dean, and drummer Mike Belitsky for the 13-song Rick White and the Sadies last year, an album of originals that landed on the Polaris Music Prize longlist. A live performance recorded in Toronto last September followed as the Live at the Great Hall double LP.
Again is out on vinyl through White's Blue Fog Recordings.
