Peter Mansbridge and the CBCs

Peter Mansbridge & the CBCs are a trio of university students from New Brunswick, and they play sluggish, pretty, lying-on-the-riverbank kind of folk. Like shoegazing done by Canadian woodsmen (hiking-boot gazing?), P & the CBCs are deeply in touch with their national roots (in case you couldn't tell), and they borrow Canadian iconography to clarify their cool, remote country aesthetic. Though the vocals are sometimes stretched into whines, and the songs are at times needlessly slow, I would attribute these downfalls to greenness rather than a lack of compositional skill (or maybe an abundance of Canadian hydro?). Still, the band are highly capable — a standout track is "An Identifiably Canadian Love Song,” in which crunchy, bittersweet guitars flicker in and out of the mix while an accordion carries the sleepy, wandering tune. It’s a lovely, loose bundle of sounds, though a stronger vocal delivery would be the tie that makes the whole package truly presentable. The band’s languid, surreal approach to Northern country/folk is a new perspective on what roots music is in this time, in this place, to slackers, rock fans and students living easy in small towns in the Maritimes.