Kill The Lights started out in Toronto in 2005 as a melodic power-trio. We practiced hard on Richmond and played the Queen-street circuit and tried to figure out how the music scene worked. Ah, the Reverb, our first gig. No doubt it was terrible.
After that we became a 5-piece. Consequently, we became a much louder band. Lots of feedback. Lots going on aesthetically. Maybe a bit confusing at times. Who was the frontperson? Steph or Alex? What was the focus? Dance punk beats, or introspective lyrical content? In any event, it worked, probably because we were rocking out in a way that indie kids could digest at a time when lots of bands were probably too theoretical. Say, an oboe and a cheese grater through a loop pedal. Points for adventurousness, but lacking something basic. We had that visceral connection with an audience that big bass and drums provide. Your thorax cannot help but rattle at certain decibel levels and bassy low registers.
So we signed to MapleMusic Recordings and re-released our first album with some added overdubs. We called it "Buffalo of Love." It got radio play. People outside of Canada noticed. We toured across Canada a bunch of times, and Ontario a million times. We sacrificed jobs and relationships. We had moose come through our windshields. We fought with each other and drank alot and got older fast. We toured and played with everyone from YSP!WSD! to Bedouin Soundclash to Dragonette to K-OS. Still, something wasn't quite …
Kill The Lights started out in Toronto in 2005 as a melodic power-trio. We practiced hard on Richmond and played the Queen-street circuit and tried to figure out how the music scene worked. Ah, the Reverb, our first gig. No doubt it was terrible.
After that we became a 5-piece. Consequently, we became a much louder band. Lots of feedback. Lots going on aesthetically. Maybe a bit confusing at times. Who was the frontperson? Steph or Alex? What was the focus? Dance punk beats, or introspective lyrical content? In any event, it worked, probably because we were rocking out in a way that indie kids could digest at a time when lots of bands were probably too theoretical. Say, an oboe and a cheese grater through a loop pedal. Points for adventurousness, but lacking something basic. We had that visceral connection with an audience that big bass and drums provide. Your thorax cannot help but rattle at certain decibel levels and bassy low registers.
So we signed to MapleMusic Recordings and re-released our first album with some added overdubs. We called it "Buffalo of Love." It got radio play. People outside of Canada noticed. We toured across Canada a bunch of times, and Ontario a million times. We sacrificed jobs and relationships. We had moose come through our windshields. We fought with each other and drank alot and got older fast. We toured and played with everyone from YSP!WSD! to Bedouin Soundclash to Dragonette to K-OS. Still, something wasn't quite right.
Steph left. We are now a 4-piece. We are now wiser and much better musicians. We moved back to our hometown of Montreal in 2007. We are closer to our families. We now feel like this is the band we are supposed to be. We are now writing our best material, and our 2nd is called FOG AREA. It is spacey and laced through with tons of keyboards and sonic grit and huge drums and intricate riffs and a decent amount of personal history and struggle. We've been around the block and come back to the most obvious truths, the truths that the Industry Game can make you forget. You have to make music because it is in you. Because you love it. And you have to take risks. And you cannot dilute yourself. And you have to keep your chin up.
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Only a couple of months after the release of Fog Area, Kill The Lights’ impressive second album, the band is back with Pink Dog, a digitally formatted five-track EP, released on June 8th 2010, on Bonsound Records and available on killthelights.bandcamp.com.
Pink Dog is five previously unreleased gems recorded in between the Fog Area and Buffalo of Love sessions. Imbued with the same contemplative and profoundly atmospheric vibe as Fog Area, the songs on Pink Dog are proof of an intense width of scope. From Paint Your Eyes, Susan, a lovely acoustic guitar-based track in the mold of Fog Area’s Je Suis Perdu, to the richly layered LLLEGGS, Kill The Lights once again surprises us with a sound that is dark, dense, and uplifting.
