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The Black Fever – Photo courtesy of The Black Fever
Toronto-based post-punk/indie rock band The Black Fever are rolling out their new EP, Unarticulated Wants, on June 14th, but The Big Takeover is thrilled be hosting its premiere at day earlier.
The EP is all at once atmospherically restless, structurally sharp and shining, sonically darkly dreamy, and vocally hazy and emotive. Unarticulated Wants presents a band at the height of their veteran musical powers and listeners will helplessly dissipate into the radiant and reverberating glow.
The Black Fever started off as a solo project in and around 2007. The first album was recorded by founding member, Shoe, and finished in 2009. After that, Pat Bramm and Dan Purpura joined the band, and they have been playing together ever since.
Shoe and Bramm met at the University of Toronto and played in another band together before The Black Fever. Purpura played drums in another band that Shoe and Bramm did shows with, and then he joined The Black Fever when that other band broke up.
To date, the band has released three albums: Romanticism (2009), Revisionist (2012), and Midnight Century (2014). This year marks their decade as a band creating music and playing shows together.
Unarticulated Wants is a thrilling recollection of the political, emotional, and societal upheaval that we’ve all found ourselves in. Blasting out of your stereo with post-punk fury, but grounded in glorious lush melodicism, the EP is a showcase for diverging worlds, both in its subject matter and in its sonic foundation.
The Black Fever utilizes a widescreen palette, lit in rich black and white sonic photography. There a delicate precision behind their spellbinding rock ‘n’ roll-influenced sound, but also a potent energy that imbues all the tracks with urgency and controlled power.
The band members reveal the relevant backstory behind the EP, explaining, “Our intention as a band has always been to write songs to which people can live their lives. I think with Unarticulated Wants, we’ve written a batch of songs that reflect the modern world that we’re living in – political instability, economic disparity, and of course, the everyday dramas of love and life.”
”Whether it’s the moodiness and anguish of “Cold Open,” an exploration of the Toronto G20 protests (“Kettling”), the struggles for love in “Keep You,” a cry for help from bad economic times of “No Work,” or the critique of crass materialism in “Marketing,” this is set of songs that hold a mirror to the times we’re living in or have recently gone through. Hopefully, they are songs that will resonate with people.” No question about that!
