The upcoming album of Fredericton’s Wicked Vices has the band pulling from their backlog of material, with a few tracks emerging from more than a couple of years ago. The previously released on-the-road rocker “Butterfly”  had been pieced together at the beginning of the pandemic, while their late-night summer jam “Liquor” has been around almost as long as the band has.

Their newest single, “Athlone St.”, finds its foundations in a riff from all the way back in 2017. While that’s something of a testament to the band’s longevity—let’s be honest, four years is more like forty in band years—the song is actually about the rifts that nearly tore the band apart. Continue reading Wicked Vices’ ‘Athlone St.’ is About the Struggle of ‘Being Married to Four Other People’ →

Rock and roll has always had a complicated, and often disastrous, relationship with drugs. Rather than the typical romanticizing portrayal of said relationship—or far worse, the demonizing sermon—the new single from Squintin’ Tarantino offers a far more complex perspective on a chemical dependency gone wrong.

“Sandtrails” isn’t the average glorification of psychedelics, nor an enthusiastic lauding of cocaine, a boast of a chronic pot habit,  or even an ode to heroin. It’s a tale of prescription pharmaceuticals, casually prescribed by a well-intentioned doctor, Hippocratic Oath in hand, perhaps without fully considering the consequences. Continue reading Squintin’ Tarantino Goes Cold Turkey and Pushes the Boundaries of Folk on ‘Sandtrails’ →