Bravestation

Toronto, ON quartet Bravestation (a pleasantly anglophilic bunch) recently played alongside Wintersleep at CMW 2012. The two bands share something that's evident on Giants & Dreamers: a yen for big-hearted tunes like "Amaranthine" and "Western Thrills" that ignite melodies dazzling enough to blind stadiums. The difference is, to get there we're not talking ten years of hard toil, but rather a single, rosy-cheeked debut EP followed by a couple of years on the road. The result is a treasure trove of lovelorn melancholy, with bucolic, Wild Beastly guitars dancing on a blanket of frisky percussion and obscure melodic fill-ins. It's a sure-fire fan-pleaser, and aside from the odd appearance of effects pedals that might've been nabbed from a ropey Incubus record, Giants & Dreamers introduces a band for whom box-ticking comes so naturally that thinking outside of it can't be far around the corner.