Freer

Starting off your debut album with the lyrics, "I was washing windows at an old folks home” isn’t exactly in the handbook for scoring scene points, but that’s not what Freer are here for. Although this is a debut, the band have established a sound much better fitting to the ’70s than our present state. Freer are punk rock in Neil Young’s Living With War kind of way, and the rocking tunes are artsy and comfortably rough around the edges. The title track has a wonderfully fun piano motif, while "Long Road Home” sparkles and builds like any of Canada’s favourites, such as the Stills or the Junction. Most tracks have an element of experimentation to them (hear the craziness that is "Carnival Hardcore”), placing Detroit’s Freer amongst the likes of Jeff Buckley or Radiohead, minus the popularity. They tell stories as if they were Bruce Springsteen’s offspring and are just as easily lovable. The lyrics are unsettling and while many before them have complained about the state of our society, Freer do so with a passion-fuelled urgency that’d be hard to ignore by any human being, assuming they have a heart.

(Jumberlack, www.jumberlackmedia.com)