Strike Gold With Yukon Blonde

By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 12, 2012 4:20PM

Photo from the band's Facebook page

When you've written about music for as long as this correspondent, the chances of something unexpectedly popping into your review bin that immediately sends shivers down your spine are increasingly extremely rare. However within the first thirty seconds of Yukon Blonde's album Tiger Talk it was obvious this disc had the potential to do just that. By the time the final notes of closing track "Sweet Dee" faded off it was a bona fide spine shiverer of an album. Imagine just how dumb this writer felt when he realized he wasn't making some brand new underground discovery, but was instead listening to the sophomore album from a band that's been around for seven years. Let's just chalk it up to they're being from north of the border and having been too polite to reveal themselves until now? Yeah, let's just say that.

Yukon Blonde aren't breaking any musical rules or forging into any groundbreaking territory, instead they've finely honed a powerful does of power pop with an Anglophilic attitude that adds sass to their attack. This is stadium rock that's been crafted on the cramped stages of a thousand small clubs. You can feel the ambition throb through the melodies but everything is so perfectly constructed it feels like a compact attack of sunshine. We usually don't resort to RIYL comparisons but at first we thought we were hearing the love child of Supergrass and Sloan when we listened to Tiger Talk. Once we discovered they were Canadian we had a head-slapping "of course!" moment. Something about that climate just helps groups hunker down and craft rock music that still knows how to party without resorting to an ironic smirk.

In fact we're so stoked about this band we have a pair of tickets to give away to one lucky Chicagoist ready for their show opening for The Jezabels at Lincoln Hall on Sunday, October 14, so watch the video for the incredibly addictive "Stairway"—it'll make you a fan—and enter below before 5 p.m. today for your chance to win.