Montreal's Taxi Girls arrive with Static, their debut full-length album, out June 26 on Stomp Records. If the first two singles introduced the band, Static is where the full picture develops. Across ten tracks, Taxi Girls pull together giant hooks, sharp songwriting, dual-vocal chemistry, and a deep appreciation for the women who made rock and roll dangerous, stylish, and impossible to ignore. There are flashes of The Runaways, Girlschool, Nikki Corvette, The No Talents, and the melodic punch of classic power pop throughout the record, but never as imitation. These songs feel less like homage and more like continuation.
The album feels born from afternoons spent digging through dusty bins, arguments over forgotten punk singles, and record bags slung over shoulders. Mile End bars become afterparties. Somebody always puts on the perfect 45 at exactly the right moment. The city is everywhere on Static, not as subject matter, but as perspective. It’s the sound of a band raised on great records, great stories, and the belief that a three-minute song can still change your day.
While the album carries plenty of swagger, it also reveals a band willing to dig deeper. Across Static, Taxi Girls explore love, loss, mental health, postpartum depression, self-doubt, and the strange comfort of nostalgia. The songs don't offer neat conclusions or easy answers. Instead, they trace the difficult path toward self-acceptance, resilience, and learning when to let go of the things that no longer serve you.
The album's title captures that tension perfectly. Static represents the feeling of being stuck while somehow remaining in motion, caught between reflection and reinvention. Even the lemon on the album cover reflects that spirit. It's a symbol of making the best of life's worst situations, finding meaning in setbacks, and pushing forward when standing still would be easier.
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| Photo - Alan Messer |
Acclaimed Americana collective Cimarron 615 returns with Same Sky, arriving August 7th via Blue Élan Records. The band’s third album and most fully realized statement to date, is introduced by the lead single, “Aruba,” a breezy horn-driven reggae ode about escaping life’s daily pressures. “It’s a party song about a lost weekend,” says bassist and vocalist Jack Sundrud. “The story of a guy who goes to the Caribbean on vacation and parties so hard that he not only has no memory of what happened, he apparently didn’t even make it out of his motel room.”
The album finds Poco veterans Jack Sundrud (bass, vocals), Michael Webb (keyboards, accordion), Rick Lonow (drums, percussion), and guitarist, vocalist and songwriter Ronnie Guilbeau, Combined, the band builds on the chemistry that first brought them together following the passing of Poco co-founder Rusty Young.
The story of Cimarron 615 begins with Poco, one of the pioneering bands of the country-rock movement. After Rusty Young’s passing in 2021, Blue Élan Records founder Kirk Pasich assembled Lonow, Sundrud and Webb for a tribute concert and recording project. The chemistry was undeniable. When Guilbeau—who co-wrote Poco’s 1989 Top 20 hit “Call It Love”—joined the lineup, what began as a tribute quickly evolved into a band with its own identity.
Collectively, the four musicians represent decades of American music history. Beyond Poco, their résumés include Burrito Deluxe, Great Plains, Brooklyn Cowboys, Palomino Road, and GYG, along with recording and touring credits alongside Johnny Cash, June Carter Cash, Loretta Lynn, Chris Stapleton, John Prine, John Fogerty, Hank Williams Jr. and many more.
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Dave Clark - Through The Wall.
The journey continues. Dave keeps us intrigued with “Through the Wall” an intimate reflection on disintegrating relationships and our desire not to accept reality. The masterful guitar complements the lyrics without overwhelming, allowing us to sink into the melody.
Producer Glenn Kerrigan created a lush atmospheric backdrop for the song with floating synths and intricate beats. “We’ve all buried our heads in the sand when things go wrong in a relationship," said Dave. “Rather than write the standard. "You write the now and I’m sad type of song."
"I thought it would bring something new and reflect on how we cling on, even when we know it’s well past its sell-by date." Dave continues to release intriguing and listenable songs, each with it’s own character but recognisably his own, making him one of today’s more interesting songwriters.
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As the latest artist to appear out of the fertile musical soil of Ontario’s Prince Edward County, D.B. Tait makes a powerful first impression with his debut single, “Before You Go.” A haunting cosmic country ballad with echoes of Jason Molina and MJ Lenderman, the song is a preview of a full-length album entitled Losing Time that is sure to establish Tait as a vital new voice within the alt-country world.
Tait explains, “I wrote ‘Before You Go’ as a song about knowing there’s something difficult coming, in any sort of relationship, whether it’s romantic or platonic, and the anxiety and stress that comes with waiting to have that sort of confrontation—almost like waiting to hear if you got a job or if you made the cut on a sports team, but on a more personal and even existential level. The anticipation of that confrontation can be a real struggle sometimes.”
Tait recorded “Before You Go,” as well as the rest of Losing Time (release date TBC), largely in his home studio, tracking most of the guitars and vocals on his own. Close collaborators Ian Roantree and Mitch Cory from the band Kojak added overdubs, while fellow Prince Edward County singer-songwriter and Littleknown Records head David James Allen handled the mix.
Since co-founding Kojak in 2018, Tait has gradually embraced a parallel path as a solo artist in order to express different themes of life’s everyday problems and how facing them helps to break free of destructive cycles. His songs explore how these actions affect love, death, relationships with friends, and the need to gain control of one’s self-governance. In naming the album Losing Time, Tait is essentially taking up the fight for all of us against letting our personal hourglasses run out.
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