Hop in a car and drive 14 hours north of Toronto, or eight hours east of Winnipeg, and eventually you’ll stumble across a town called Thunder Bay, Ontario. Located on the shores of Lake Superior, Thunder Bay is best known for being located 14 hours north of Toronto, eight hours east of Winnipeg and on the shores of Lake Superior. Actually, it’s also the original home of Late Night with David Letterman band leader Paul Schaffer, Lakehead University (one of Canada’s top research universities) and some killer scenery given its water-on-one-side-and-Canadian-Shield-on-the-other location, but the point here is that Thunder Bay is a small outpost literally in the middle of nowhere. It’s not the sort of place you’d expect a top-notch noise rock/metal band playing in the sonic neighbourhood of Unsane, Botch, the Jesus Lizard, Cursed and KEN Mode’s metallic mid-period.
Local racket makers Alienatör are here to represent the town and crush as many myths as possible, at least until they start hitting on road on the heels of their latest album, Regrets which is the kind of gloriously powerful and virtually flawless album that rigorous touring schedules and proverbial world domination through music the mainstream masses don’t listen to or understand is built upon. The album, which was self-released, has actually been out since the end of November, but we’ve just got our hands on a couple of the band’s videos, one for latest single “The Less Dead” and the album’s title track. When asked about the videos, songs and album, the band responded by saying:
“Regrets is an album that reflects the anger, fear, paranoia, claustrophobia and misinformation that we’ve all suffered through in the past few years. ‘The Less Dead’ is our most straight-ahead track. It describes those most marginalized in our society whose deaths are seen as less worthy of investigation by the police. The first line of the song refers to so-called ‘starlight tours,’ where police would drive ‘undesirables’ to the outskirts of town and leave them to walk back in the dead of winter. Abuse of power by those in positions of authority is another thread that runs through the album; from politicians and business leaders in ‘Revisionist History,’ to the church in ‘The Priest’ and ‘Irreconcilable,’ to purveyors of alternative facts in ‘Flat Earth Society.’ ‘The Less Dead’ highlights such abuses by those in law enforcement, who take liberties with our most vulnerable citizens which have reached the forefront of the public consciousness over the past few years. The video is live footage, shot and edited by our friend Peter David Wragg, who created all of the videos for the album. We hope it captures the energy of the song and of a live show.”
And here’s the band’s first video from the album for the title track, Regrets.
For more info and to snag copies of Regrets, check out the usual outlets:
