PRIORS' 'Daffodil' Is Coloured by Contentment

BY Stephan BoissonneaultPublished May 30, 2023

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PRIORS frontman Chance Hutchison has no doubt lived the life of a societal sonic reprobate — woken up on cigarette-burned carpets and couches, played DIY eviction parties with one of his many bands (Private Lives, New Vogue, Sonic Avenues), crowd-surfed while covered in late night detritus. You know, the classic sex, drugs, and rock n' roll lifestyle seen through a slightly more gritty lens. 

Whatever your brain can muster, Hutchison has probably lived it and sung about it in a speedy garage punk tone over four full-length albums with PRIORS. Steadily approaching 40, Hutchison has also been around the scene long enough to see it die and be reborn time and time again, while watching guitar-centric music fade rapidly from the mainstream. But the mainstream has never been for PRIORS and Hutchison, who can now watch a new generation of punks sweep through the dimly lit dive bars of Quebec.. 

It's important to understand the legacy of PRIORS as a stalwart in the Canadian punk scene when talking about Daffodil, the band's fourth full-length. Here is a band that made its debut in 2016 with spirited garage rock harkening to the days of Aussie punks the Saints or even the UK outfit Wire. All of these PRIORS releases were energetic and heavy, music for setting mailboxes on fire or whipping your phone across the asphalt — they no doubt inspired younger bands to sweat and take a crack at it. 

There was aggression in PRIORS' music and it was tangible, emanating from Hutchison's bleak (and often eerily relatable) outlook on the life he found himself in. PRIORS could have made another album in line with that caustic worldview, and it probably would have been great. Instead, they made Daffodil — an equally great record for totally different reasons. 

Daffodil sounds like the work of a songwriter who is now, dare we say it, happy? Happy in married life, living a more quiet existence in the suburbs but still catching and supporting the up-and-coming bands when he can. That's how songs like opener "Pursuit of Happiness" or "Optimizer" — with its jumpy post-punk bassline — are created. Hutchison has given himself a chance to be settled and happy, and that's a beautiful thing; he even declares his newfound creative impulses as the "consequences of being in love" on "Narcolepsy." 

If you're worried that this sounds too poppy or cheerful for PRIORS, you shouldn't be. Just listen to a song like "Taste for Blood"— in-the-red guitar hooks, motorik drum lines, thundering bass backbeat and Hutchison's neurotic and distorted vocals are still very much present. Daffodil may be coloured by contentment and good living, but PRIORS still know how to leave the brain crispy and deep-fried. 
(Mothland)

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