Peach Pit’s songs feel like a close friend telling you a story. The Vancouver quartet—Neil Smith [vocals, guitar], Chris Vanderkooy [guitar], Peter Wilton [bass], and Mikey Pascuzzi [drums]—refine this signature storytelling over a soundtrack of breezy guitars and some ballsy distortion on their forthcoming sophomore album, expected next year via Columbia Records.   As legend has it, these high school buddies from North of the Border achieved a major breakthrough in 2016 with their self-titled viral anthem, “Peach Pit.” It eventually surpassed 25 million Spotify streams and heralded the Sweet FA EP in 2017, which also includes their hit single “Seventeen.” Meanwhile, the band’s 2017 full-length debut Being So Normal yielded a string of off-kilter anthems a la “Tommy’s Party” [13 million streams], “Alrighty Aphrodite” [11.5 million streams], and “Drop the Guillotine” [8.2 million streams]. Along the way, they have built a cult following in large part due to their stellar live show. Peach Pit has performed everywhere from Bonnaroo, Shaky Knees Music Festival, and CBC Music Festival to Bumbershoot and Capital Hill Block Party in addition to attracting acclaim from Vice, Substream, Exclaim, and more.   2019 saw them hunker down and record alongside GRAMMY® Award-winning producer John Congleton [St. Vincent, Best Coast] over the summer. The first single “Feelin’ Low (F*ckboy Blues)” illuminates a shift. Like any good tale, it ends on a twist.   “Five years ago, I was on a backpacking trip in Thailand with my best friend Tomas,” front-man Neil Smith recalls. “We made a bet over a card game tournament while we were there. The loser had to get ‘Skunk’ tattooed on his butt. On the last day in the Tokyo airport, Tomas beat me, so I had to get the butt tattoo with our other friend as the tattoo ‘artist.’ All of a sudden, everyone bursts out laughing. I was like, ‘Oh my God, what have I done?’ Long story short, I now have ‘Fuckboy’ tattooed on my butt. So, that’s what ‘Feelin’ Low’ is about.”   In the end, you’ll remember these songs (and stories) for a long time to come.

Haley Blais is a Vancouver based singer-songwriter and musician. Haley has been DIY-ing it since 2014, turning out song after song of defiant scream-into-your-pillow bedroom pop anthems recorded in her actual bedroom. Since the success of her 2018 EP Let Yourself Go, Haley has earned a considerable online reputation for her self-deprecating, self-loving balladry sung out in operatic crescendos. 90k monthly Spotify listeners and 175k YouTube subscribers have been eagerly awaiting new material.   Below the Salt is the debut studio LP from the up and comer, released on Tiny Kingdom Music. Featuring production from indie favourites Tennis (Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley) and fellow Vancouver artist Louise Burns, Haley’s signature sound has matured into a distinct new voice. The record bursts out of the gate in a flurry of drums and keys, soaring synths have replaced ukulele noodling, and confidence has replaced doubt as Haley belts out rock and roll confessionals by way of Stevie Nicks, Karen Carpenter, and Hayley Williams. Her lyrics riff on the joys and banalities of the every day, on the need to break apart and away from an uninspiring life, on radical acceptance, and manifesting a world where you feel proud of yourself and who you’re surrounded by.   However, getting there is messy, and Haley doesn’t shy away from those moments either. “Can I become what I think I am?” She asks us on the album opener “Someone Called While You Were Out” over a jangling piano and violin. It’s a question that doesn’t necessarily have an answer, but that doesn’t stop her from asking it. “Find myself inside a cab at a stoplight/I like crying inside vehicles at night but it gets easier when all the lights go down/to avoid explaining the tears of a clown” she sings on “So Funny.” It’s an ugly process to realizing yourself and sometimes things aren’t pretty when you get there either. But at least we can take solace in some swelling harmonies and guitar solos, finding company with a voice that takes life and happiness seriously, but has plenty of fun with herself along the way.   At other times we’re witness to cathartic moments of epiphany, of questions with emphatic unrestrained answers. “Now I see what it’s about/Drowning me then dry me out/Careful things you’ve now forgot about me now/Ready or not” she shouts on “Ready or Not” before being enveloped by shoegazey riffs and strings.   Below the Salt is a coming of age story that recognizes that there is no real ‘coming of age.’ There are hundreds of instances of recognition and of learning. What do we do when we find them? Well according to Haley, we take them with us. As dissonant guitars strings fire and a bass drum pulses on the single “Rob the Original” Haley softly lulls us with this record’s ethos “With all these magic moments sparkling/This one’s mine.”