Monomyth

Monomyth

Happy Pop Family

Mint

Happy Pop Family is the latest offering from Monomyth, Canada’s leading purveyors of mid-fi anthemic bedroom pop. Recorded in February of 2015 with Mike Wright (Each Other) at Montreal’s infamous Drones Club, the album has tweaked and refined the sonic palette of their 2014 debut Saturnalia Regalia. The resulting batch of songs is imbued with an almost Blake-ian wonder, delicately balancing like Charlie Chaplin on a taut guitar cable between innocence and experience. Though main songwriters / guitarists Josh Salter and Seamus Dalton (Nap Eyes’ bassist and drummer, respectively) are joined by a new rhythm section on their sophomore effort, the two keep everything in their Happy Pop Family by adding a pair of frequent collaborators. Multi-instrumentalist Scott Grundy (Heaven For Real / Quaker Parents) joins on drums while bassist Andrew Mazerolle provides scintillating low-end. Each brings a song to sweeten the pot, making this a truly family affair. Analog fetishists take note: the album was recorded to tape and mixed straight off the board, adding idiosyncratic charm and character to the songs. Their inventive blend of jangle and fuzz would slide in comfortably alongside the back catalogs of Creation, Flying Nun or Ork Records. Like a family heirloom, these pop gems shine, refracting one another’s light to create a diamond-like unity.

Monomyth

Saturnalia Regalia!

Mint

Monomyth is a crown jewel in the court of the crimson and clover. The Halifax four-piece carries on the hallowed East Coast tradition of janglophile pop with a smirking sense of humor, stadium-sized hooks and starry-eyed harmonies from the barbershop of broken dreams. The Monomyth monarchy is made up of twin tone guitarists Josh Salter and Seamus Dalton, stately bassist Graeme Stewart and soft touch drummer Matt Peters, with the frontline swapping songwriting duties and turns at the mic. In the tightly knit Halifax kingdom, their faces can also be seen in beloved local bands like Nap Eyes, Moon and Psychic Fair, plus previous projects including Bird World and Quivers. These dizzying rotations have resulted in an all-star sovereignty with a princely pop pedigree, ruling with a velvet glove and ready to conquer the next realm. Following a pair of self-released cassettes and a two-song quick hitter for tape label Craft Singles, Saturnalia Regalia! heralds their triumphant LP debut. Though there’s a clear sonic lineage with the holy Halifax trinity of Sloan, Thrush Hermit and the Super Friendz (whose bassist Charles Austin assisted in this album’s production), Monomyth also invokes the amber-encased Americana of Big Star, pranksterish pop moves of The dB’s and The Soft Boys, Television’s tangled guitarmonies, MBV’s tremolo-gaze, and the radiant ramble of Relatively Clean Rivers. That may sound like a vast range of sonic touch-points, but the band’s three-piece throne prefers to explore all corners of their catholic tastes. “[T]he songs were written independent of each...