We interrupt our regularly scheduled ‘end of year’ programming with this short post, indeed, a little bit of revisionist history.
This has happened occasionally over the many years of counting down my favourite albums of the year. An album comes out late in the year, either just before finishing putting together the list and too late to become terribly familiar with it to allow for serious consideration or as it was in this case, released a full week after I solidified my list and started posting words about it. And I actually suspected that this might happen when I heard the release date for Breeze’s third album “Sour grapes” was being pushed back to December 8th. Of course, now that it’s out and I’ve given it a few spins, I knew it begged special mention before the year was out.
For its first two records, Breeze was basically a solo studio project of Josh Korody, who was once one half of Toronto-based dream pop duo, Beliefs. I have yet to listen to Breeze’s debut, “The record”, but from what I’ve read, it was not too far removed from his work with his other band. The sophomore record, “Only up”, was recorded in only 8 days with a handful of like-minded musicians from other well-known Toronto area bands and received a lot of nods from the music press for its energetic and updated homage to Manchester baggy and Britpop. It reached number four on my own list of best albums for 2021 back in the day.
Since then, Korody has put together a full band to meet the need to be able to perform songs from that sophomore album live. This latest record includes contributions from said band and sees the addition of a bit of 80s post-punk and new wave to the 90s brit pop and baggy sounds. A little bit of Echo & the Bunnymen to the Happy Mondays. If that seems like it might be your thing as much as it is mine, I highly recommend giving this one a go.
I’ll be back in a couple of days returning to our regularly scheduled program, counting down my Best albums of 2023 list. In the meantime, you can check out my Best Albums page here if you’re interested in my other favourite albums lists.
My (life in) music lists 