Sonic Avenues Stand Alone

BY Nicole VilleneuvePublished Jan 30, 2012

Sonic Avenues may call Montreal home, but they don't exactly sound the part, something vocalist/guitarist Max Desharnais admits they hear a lot about their dirtied-up power-pop.

"In Montreal now, in our genre, there's maybe only us and Genital Hospital," he says. "In Ottawa, it's booming. We made fast friends [there], and our band progressed in parallel to the scene they have there."

The quartet was received warmly overseas too, and after a successful European tour, returned home freshly sold out of three pressings of their self-titled 2009 debut. The follow-up, Television Youth, sharpens the striking contrast between their punk approach and pop proficiency, a development that put them in the crosshairs of Portland, OR label Dirtnap Records.

"We feel like we're bringing the record home in a sense. Not that we wrote an album to be on a certain label, but Dirtnap released some of the bands that we listen to every day. It totally validates what we're trying to do."

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