speed of dark

Yet another Montreal-based band has stolen my heart. I love Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade, and I used to love the Unicorns, but they broke up. The Stills are from Montreal, too, and they've got some good songs. Even Men Without Hats (they can dance if they want to) are from Montreal! But the new Dears album is definitely going to be on my Best of 2006 list.

I first came across The Dears on download.com quite a while back where the band had posted Lost in the Plot as a free download. Upon hearing the song, I thought that Morrissey had formed another band and I didn't know about it. I was also shocked to discover that they weren't Brits, as I originally suspected. I started listening to some of their other tracks and at first, I was disappointed that these songs didn't have the same sound as Lost in the Plot. But upon the necessary repeated listenings I began to love them as much, if not more than, LitP.

Then, somewhere out there in the land of music blogs, I came across one of the tracks off of their upcoming album, Gang of Losers and swooned. I heard a few more here and there and it was apparent to me that I would be making one of my few actual disc purchases of this disc. (Sidenote: I usually buy songs piecemeal from iTunes, rather than buy the whole disc) Every track I've heard so far (more than listed below) is great...other standouts are There Goes My Outfit and Whites Only Party. So download and enjoy the tracks I have below of their back and future catalogue and buy Gang of Losers when it comes out October 3.

Hey, alt-gramma...they're playing at the Troub on October 4...wanna go? I'm serious. I don't care that it's a Wednesday. And you don't have to go to work. I'll take Thursday off.

From End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story (2000):

the dears: heartless romantic

From No Cities Left (2004):

the dears: lost in the plot

From the upcoming Gang of Losers (2006):

the dears: hate then love
the dears: fear made the world go round

Bonus track! From KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic:

the dears: postcard from purgatory

Visit the Dears' website here.