Groenland

Regular readers of this blog might have noticed a slight bias to French music in general and French-Canadian artists in particular… So when the bandoftheday.app band of the day hailed from the Francophone province of Quebec, who was I not to delve further?

  

"The Chase" is the ambitious and impressive debut offering by Montreal-based six-piece Groenland. Fronted by the dynamic vocals of the multi-talented Sabrina Halde, keyboards and percussion of Jean-Vivier Lévesque and ably supported by Jonathan Charette (drums), Simon Gosselin (bass), Gabrielle Girard-Charest (cello) and Fanny Laurin (violin), the album is a lush symphony of well-crafted indie-pop that borrows from and are influenced by genres as diverse as electronica, jazz, classical and country-folk…

While this may seem like a pretty terrible mix (or "mash-up" as today's yoof are prone to pronounce), it's testament to the band's maturity, belief and creative "je ne sais quoi" (well they're from Montreal after all) that not only do they pull this off with some aplomb, you start to ask yourself why more artists don't have the "couilles" to push their musical boundaries...

Reviews have commented on the power and diversity of Sabrina's vocal style. From here it's hard to argue. If Sabrina was a fine wine, I'd be saying that I detect "notes" of not only fellow Quebecois Melanie Scala, Marie-Pierre Arthur, Fanny Bloom and Angela Galuppo - but also the likes of Adele, Florence Welch and Paloma Faith - again artists who've all stamped their own unique style on their work.

I mentioned earlier that Groenland weren't afraid to push the boundaries on this album. The opener, "Our last shot" is a classic indie-pop song with an incredibly catchy hook, and while the Ukulele on "Superhero" may throw you at first, the song builds into another soaring pop sing… And then you get caught totally off-guard by the great jazzy-bluesy feel of tracks such as "26 septembre" and "Our hearts like gold". Personally I love the slow soulful torch-burners "Immune", with it's fantastic strings backing, all moody and dark, and the Adele-like "La pleuvre". Did I reference country-folk earlier? It's there on "Daydreaming", ukulele and all, in spades… 

I could go on, but seriously, if you like your music to be creative, challenging yet engaging, you need to check out Groenland the band and "The Chase" the album, right now…

Groenland band website (EN / FR)
Groenland "The Chase"  
Grownland bandcamp page