The Halifax Urban Folk Festival – HUFF – presents Edmonton-based band Royal Tusk – along with Yarmouth’s Rain Over St. Ambrose and Dana Beeler’s new project, Hello Delaware – at The Carleton on Wednesday, May 11th. We think this band is great and to make sure there’s no excuse for you to miss them, this show will be FREE. Live music will get underway sometime after 9 PM.
Read the information below, check out the video and then get the pen out to mark this date on your calendar!
Forged from rock ‘n’ roll soul, blue-collar charm and a renegade attitude, it’s no surprise this quintet of bearded prairie men made a lasting impression with audiences on their well-received 2014 EP, Mountain. Royal Tusk‘s full-length debut, DealBreaker out May 6, 2016 via MapleMusic Recordings, embraces a dynamic evolution in the band’s sound. Produced by the award-winning Eric Ratz (Big Wreck, Monster Truck, Arkells, Billy Talent), DealBreaker captures the true raw energy Royal Tusk wield, and the result is loud and guitar-driven with hints of Americana and soul.
Lead vocalist and guitarist Daniel Carriere says: “We’ve always been a guitar-driven band, but Mountain focused on highlighting our pop songwriting. For DealBreaker, we wanted to maintain that songwriting integrity, but make an old-fashioned heavy-guitar record.” After touring with Royal Tusk, Ian Thornley of Big Wreck was so impressed he lent his venerable guitar skills to DealBreaker with a massive solo on “So Long The Build Up”.
“These are really great guys, in a really great band. It was an absolute pleasure to play on their record.” – Ian Thornley
Royal Tusk was born with a shared love for the craft of music, and a natural chemistry that manifests itself in the band’s songs and in its fiery live performances. Carriere and Sandy MacKinnon (bass) spent 12 years in beloved JUNO-nominated Edmonton band, Ten Second Epic and knew they weren’t done making great music. They rounded up Quinn Cyrankiewicz (guitar), Calen Stuckel (drums) and Mike James (keyboard/guitars) for a jam session, and just 10 months later the band headed to New York to record Mountain with Gus Van Go (Hollerado, Whitehorse, The Stills). “Shadow of Love” and “Smoke Rings” were breakout tracks off Mountain and both saw significant radio-play. These singles helped earn Royal Tusk a 2015 SIRIUSXM Emerging Artist of the Year nomination, an “artist of the month” nod from Sonic 102.9, and a short-list spot for CBC’s 2014 Rising Star Award.
Over the years, Rain Over St. Ambrose has been quietly becoming one of the best rock bands in Nova Scotia and if you aren’t aware of them, you sure should be.
Here’s the skinny on their newest album, Still Waking Up…
The sophomore full-length from Rain Over St. Ambrose reverberates with anthemic sing-alongs, swampy fuzzed-out riff rock, and swirling synths. From the buzzsaw guitars of “29 Takes,” to the falsetto backups on the hook-heavy “Petty Thief,” to the stoner-infused breaks on “Broken Love” and “Death of a Salesman,” the album is enormous in tone and uninhibited in its approach. Raw, contemplative, and feverish, Still Waking Up once again showcases the band’s commitment to “honest, from-the-gut rock and roll” (The Chronicle Herald).
Produced by Tim D’Eon (Wintersleep) and recorded by Diego Medina at the Old Confidence Lodge in Riverport, NS, the album was mixed at the Castle of Doom in Scotland by Tony Doogan (Mogwai, Belle and Sebastien, Hey Rosetta!) and mastered at Sterling Audio in New York by Greg Calbi (War on Drugs, St. Vincent, Paul Simon).
Hello Delaware is a force. Lyrics everyone can get behind, are delivered with syrupy sweet (yet gritty) vocals and edgy, danceable melodies. Hello Delaware will take your saddest break-up and make you realize you were probably too good for them anyway.
Singer/songwriter Dana Beeler has re-emerged with a fresh new sound. Hello Delaware’s 2016 release My Mistake, produced by Daniel Ledwell, is an edgy piece of work that sees Beeler stretching her creative reach in a different direction than the country-tinged material that marked her earlier recordings.
By far her strongest songs to date, the material is both introspective and confrontational, like the artist herself. Hook-laden melodies are paired with aggressive messages of love gone wrong one moment and softer contemplations on loss, travel and growing up the next. It is a strong and interesting record that is bound to make some waves with listeners everywhere.