“The deepest hole could swallow me until I’m gone and spit me out.” The line is just about the most 2020 thing you’d expect to hear from a band thriving on a 2002 sound.
2017 Maritime Metal and Hard Rock Festival’s battle of the bands winner, The Dead Minutes of South Shore, Nova Scotia, describe themselves as a “hard-hitting punch of hard rock music with the ominous textures of post-hardcore and alternative” reminiscent of Thrice, Fugazi or Russian Circles.
The band explains that they define their success by personal happiness, thriving on the love of music, the emotions it sparks and the memories that are created and restored. Given the state of things, however, it’s still understandable that their latest release is named “Sadness.”
“If we’ve gained at least one new fan at every gig, we feel we did something right for that person, and we’re happy with that,” says guitarist Joey Fiander.
Consisting of Wade Fralic (vocals), Joey Fiander (guitar), Jason Calder (bass) and Billy Hamilton (drums), the band has a strong sense about them that they received their musical education at the feet of Moses Znaimer. From the vocal-forward mix to the video itself, if it weren’t for the modern pairing of the onscreen lyrics, “Sadness” might have found itself on MuchMusic, wedged somewhere between Deftones and TOOL.
And maybe we have an ingrained bias for that; a last kick at the can for the golden age of the music industry that raised most of us. Without a doubt, the song is punching above its weight; supremely emotive without being heavy-handed, with a clean sound without losing its authenticity.
It’s absolutely golden if you’re looking to relive the early half of the previous decade. For a song about the loneliness of depression, it feels strangely right at home.
Following their release of “Fear” back in June, The Dead Minutes’ “Sadness” is the second single from the band’s upcoming EP release, Eight Emotions.