Yet another rad garage punk band rocketing out of Ottawa! Seriously, O-town what’s going on over there? Glorious Moonrockets rock a sludgy 70’s vibe, mixing equal parts Sabbath and T Rex with some slow and low cruise to the riffs, which dive so elegantly into head-bobbing stoner riffs. Really really sleazily pleasing rock n roll!

Let’s run with the moon-themed bands for a while longer.. Montreal upstarts Moon Clouds are churning out a space-prog sound that is so very scintillating and promising, I can’t wait to see the music they’ll be putting out on local label Cuchabata recs, who recently snapped em up. Ace musicians all they’ve accomplished the neat trick of pulling together so many disparate types of music to forge a unique sound that simply owns. Until the first true releases drop, feast your sound-holes on this video of a recent show.

Toronto-based garage miscreants have rolled out a gorgeous series of 7 inches on Pleasance Recs. I manage to grab the first in the series, but am dying to get my vinyl-addicted mitts on the other 4 after hearing this. Fun, irreverent and actually kinda funky, they don’t sit in any mould but their own, which is just how I likes my rock n roll. Featuring art by Montreal collage master (and Panopticon Eyelids drummer) Felix Morel , I’d strongly advise you collect em all!

One of the loudest bands in Montreal, Ultraptérodactyle have outdone themselves on this party rocker EP, freshly dropped on our unsuspecting faces. Cribbing liberally from diverse influences, you can hear as much Mudhoney as New York Dolls in their sound. Three perfect, white hot jams on this EP leave you breathless, sweaty and wanting much more. Pure audio sex.

Sometimes you gotta go to another city to get some press in your hometown. OK that didn’t make much sense… my wife works at a record store and some erstwhile young black metallers foisted their tape upon her and I quite love it! Yes, it follows the script exactly, distant sweep-picking guitars, cavernous drums, hot, delayed sacrilegious vocals.. these guys have studied their Venom to be sure. Man sometimes you just want some straight up black metal, I am so glad the youths are still doing it and doing it as well as the lads in Spite !

Montreal no-wave group Sacral Nerves mixes simple riffs with ploinky bits and pieces and high keening choirs on this rad rad track from local uni radio CJLO’s new compilation. Starting off with a loopy riff slightly reminiscent of UJ3RK-5 it dives into the aforementioned choir bit that morphs and roughens into a more punk reiteration of the theme. Really great tune and totally trippy actually, if I was still prone to taking psychedelic I would trip balls to this one.

Miesha and The Spanks are from Calgary and are the kind of hard-touring, hard-partying riff-masters you don’t see a lot of in this country anymore. While all these sappy attention whore bands snuffle around corporate festivals, hoping for little crumbs of ego candy to drop their way. Meanwhile, Miesha keeps it real, down and greasy, touring back and forth across the nation like the proverbial bat out of hell. Her songs are short, diamond hard nuggets that have an understated side, made for dancing around, clutching a warm tallboy to your leather-jacketed chest. She can sure shred a guitar and her vocals are gnarly without overdoing it, throwing out hooks like it ain’t no thing. Fat, badass production by Sir Ian Blurton of C’Mon fame sure doesn’t hurt things, either.

I became aware of Washington’s Shat Shorts on a tour when I picked up a split 7” they did with some buds of ours Bandname. The songs on that split were fun, lofi and irreverent. Little did I suspect that they would take things this far and deliver such a fierce and thick slab of heaviousity. WOW! Apparently they took their name as a pun on the hipster noise band Pissed Jeans who, in this writers opinion, sound like total hacks when compared to these kids. Shat Shorts: buy their music, go to their shows, this is a seriously good and seriously damaged band.

Listening to this 4 track EP from new Montreal grunge/punk trio Teen Seizure you may be led to believe they really dig Nirvana. THIS IS A GOOD THING. Mixing up some Cobain-y growls with Cramps-ian drum pounding and snaky, punk gnar guitar riffs, this is some highly enjoyable slime and sludge. Nicely mid-fi and emphasis on fun, the perfect bridge from the 90s to right now.

In the mood for some deeply messed acousmatique guitar skronk? Luckily I was sick today and the cold meds sure helped me settle into the heady, wet and wild playing of local improv and rock leading lights David Dugas Dion and Alex Pelchat. Each in about 100 bands on their own, when they cum together on this, their duo project, fireworks. Like Lee Ranaldo and Rene Lussier before them these feral dudes plumb every depth and height an electric guitar is capable of achieving, a real mangling of time, tone and expectation. This 25 minute opus was taped live off the floor, impressive considering the sheer density of the sounds these two eke out of their axes. Definitely masters of the style, to be savored, possibly with some Ny-Quil.