Like many bands who wrote albums over lockdown, Cancer Bats have had to change and adapt to be able to continue to move forward with their music, especially given the departure of founding member and guitarist Scott Middleton in 2021. Although the pandemic caused many to rethink life’s priorities, for others it fuelled a need to find different avenues of creativity to achieve their goals. The remaining members of Cancer Bats – Liam Cormier (vocals), Mike Peters (drums) and Jaye Schwarzer (guitars/bass) – trying to keep in with the kids as they might put it, honed their technical skills and went online.
The new reality involved recording digital demos at home and sharing via email. The band overlayed each part, all contributing together, perfecting their work and building on what they already had before they were segregated. Jaye even moonlighted as guitarist as well as bass. Emerging from the chaos, after all that hard work, they’re feeling good: confident in who they are as a three piece.
The result, ‘Psychic Jailbreak’ is, seven-time JUNO nominated, Cancer Bats’ seventh album following 2018’s ‘The Spark That Moves’ and is released on their own label, Bat Skull Records. Though they also released two EPs in the interim. The album has evolved, from separate demos recorded apart, to a fully produced (JP Peters), integrated, epic. Skateboard noises included. The band is proud of what it has become, which is as well, because Psychic Jailbreak needs to be special, to capture who the Cancer Bats are now, and to assure the fans of a clear identity going forward. Let’s see if it is all that they hope it will be.
Cancer Bats knew that opener ‘Radiate’ needed to smack listeners in the face and from the start it gets right up in your personal space and starts breathing down your neck. Wake up. Bitch. About the aimlessness in life and how you let it happen. It’s a bounce along screamer that needs to be a live one. I love the message in ‘The Hoof’, “My life was saved by skateboards”. Ah I see why the skateboard noises are required. Some people’s lives may have been ended by skateboards too I’m sure, skateboards or the object they propelled them into. At least you’ll have some leaden sounds to accompany your demise. Ride hard.
Then there’s single ‘Lonely Bong’. It’s the lyrics that catch you on this one, a rambling sounding yet coherent tale about the best memories in life, those that have meaning. Experiences of tours, sights and sounds, the ones that were missed when trapped at home. ‘Friday Night’ has the sweetest punk-metal riff and you remember what Schwarzer has taken on as the track ramps up. While ‘Hammering On’ as it suggests, is far heavier and all about peters’ drum underlay. The track contains a surprise twist in a soulful accompanying vocal to Cormier from folk artist Brooklyn Doran who also accompanied the band on tour to promote merchandise.
In the middle of the album, the band just no-nonsense rock out. ‘Crocodiles’ has an oldschool sound that I can’t place while ‘Shadow of Mercury’ talks of the shadows that allow chaos to break free, but ‘Keep on Breathin’ is the one that catches my attention with a killer up-down rhythm that the vocals meld to really well. Breakneck speed. Hold on tight and ride the wave if you want to ‘’…Keep livin’’’.
As we near the end of the album, my head is bouncing right away to latest release ‘’Pressure Mind’’. If you want to blow off steam, listen to this. Rolling drums introduce, cough… ‘Rollin Threes’ and the guitar rhythm follows their lead. The vocals here are immense. Rising and falling, screaming and flailing, building with the guitar solo to a mesmerizing finish.
The final track is the title song and first single release. ‘Psychic Jailbreak’ refers to breaking free of the traps of the mind and the lyrics urge you to stop living life unilaterally, just to die. “Embrace the Einstein view in your mind, Smash the hourglass and let it all unwind”. Einstein understood that time is relative to the observer and therefore you must have the power to realise that there are other possibilities, other ways of thinking depending on how you look at things. Musically this is a monster, designed to get you to let go of society’s imposed restraints and let the music take you over.
If you had any doubts about the new Cancer Bats album set them aside. Life has ‘’…gone from bad to worse, in reverse’’ for Cancer Bats, who emerge victorious with a stonker of an album that the kids will love as much as us old bastards. How’s that for a Psychic Jailbreak?
- ‘Psychic Jailbreak’ is released this coming Friday (15 April). You can get your copy HERE.
- Cancer Bats are currently touring Canada and will play the Slam Dunk festival over the weekend of 3-4 May.
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