Wintersleep - New Inheritors

Welcome to the Night Sky, the 2007 album from Nova Scotia's excellent smart-rockers Wintersleep, was not only one of our favorite albums of the year it also won the band a Best New Artist Juno and solid notice from a variety of hipster scribes. Few indie collectives have both the grandly anthemic scope capable of an eight-minute opus and thoughtful, skillfully rendered songcraft in their arsenal and Wintersleep tracks "Archeologists" and "Oblivion" quickly heralded the arrival -- albeit three albums in -- of a band whose time had come in a big way. Now after a couple of side projects including the divine Postdata album from frontman Paul Murphy, Wintersleep returns with New Inheritors June 1.

Once again produced by Tony Doogan, New Inheritors has the skilled firepower and big concepts of the its predecessor while bringing an even greater immediacy to the sound. "With every record, we move closer to how we sound live," says Murphy of the new project. "It's nothing crazy different, but it's definitely a progression from our other records." The staggered rhythms, chiming bass lines, reverbed haze and what he calls the "Northern soul" influence of the title track all lend a polished, poised gleam to the band's penchant for making meticulous introspection sway with authority. And it's the jagged guitar and pummeling drums that set the backdrop for Murphy's rising vocal intensity on lead track "Black Camera", a venture into dark corners yielding distorted, alternating riffs of joy and anguish. Highly recommended.

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Wintersleep - "New Inheritors" (from the album New Inheritors) (free download @ the Wintersleep website)

Wintersleep - "Black Camera" (from the album New Inheritors)

Photo Credit: Riel Nakagawara

Photo Credit: Riel Nakagawara