Wintersleep - Hello Hum

By: Tom Dozois

These Canadian bastards, Wintersleep, are like bartenders that fill your glass to the brim. You are grateful for the generous pour, but are teetering on edge of a spill disaster. I fucking love the abundance of sound on their new album Hello Hum. Just when you think they can’t pack in anything more sonically these girthy muthafuckers push a little more.

And I though Americans were the gluttonous ones.

Astonishingly, this ‘cup of sound’ never over-flows into distortion on chaos. I feel that I’m getting the most out of my listening experience and I love every second of these thick moments in the album. The listener is blasted with a wall of guitars, synth layering vocals, oohs, ahhs, punching drums and a cold hard slap to the face. These parts are equally up-lifting, warm and goose bumpy.

If you aren’t familiar with Wintersleep, these Nova Scotians have pasty white chests under their flannels and a decent beard to no beard ratio with in the group. The band has actually been around since 2001, has had 4 well-received releases, and won a Juno award for ‘best new artist’ in 2008. What’s a Juno award? I couldn’t tell you, but apparently it’s a big deal in Canada. These guys are like the Arcade Fire of Canada. Wait….what’s that? Arcade Fire is from Canada too? Fuckin’ Aye….good thing we have a free trade agreement or else we may not be blessed with the plethora of talent up North. Oh Canada, I love you….and you free health care too.

Okay, enough about Canucks. I’m going to recommend that you listen to a couple of songs, which will in turn sell you on this album. The first is Resuscitate. This is the song that turned me on to these grizzled bear trappers. I wrote about it a couple of weeks ago in our stop sleeping column. If you didn’t listen to me the first then Fuck you; click on the link. The second is In Came The Flood because that main guitar riff makes me jizz. The third is Nothing Is Anything (With You). Fuck I love this song; the drums kick you in the chest, those oohs and ahhs make my knees weak and the bridge lights my crotch on fire. (Now I know how Syffal’s Brandon Backhaus feels).

Hello Hum is out TODAY. If you aren’t a shit face like me who has been sleeping on this band for ten years then I can’t tell you that this album has been worth the 2 year wait. If you are new to Wintersleep then give them a chance to light your pubes on fire.