There’s not enough talk about the greatness of Canadian songwriter Frederick Squire. At least not in this corner of the world where I reside. I think his albums March 12 (2010 release) and Sings Shenandoah and Other Popular Hits (2011) are both amazing. I was late to this party though and only acquired them some years later. Probably haven’t even written about them because of that. Another reason why I should write about older albums, because March 12 has become very dear to me since I picked it from Zunior’s Boxing day sale few years back.

Fred is also the Fred in Daniel, Fred & Julie and a former member of Shotgun & Jaybird. I haven’t listened to the latter one yet, even though that’s probably a criminal offense. Just like in Fred’s case, I’m familiar with Shotgun Jimmie’s future actions though (he also has a new album out on You’ve Changed and I’m planning on writing about that one later). Anyway, this was just an early shout out to tell you that a) Frederick Squire is marvellous and b) He has a new album Spooky Action at a Distance coming out May 27th and I couldn’t be more excited to hear it. The first outtake Bike Thief surfaced a couple of days ago and it sounds mighty good to me. You can judge yourself by hitting that play button below.

And here’s a couple of should-be classics from the older albums mentioned above.

Frederick Squire at Bandcamp

Jake Nicoll plays the drums for my big favourite The Burning Hell, but apparently he is also a great songwriter. He recently released a double album Two Things / Half Of Nothing. I’m still in the stage of processing all that beauty that these albums injected into my heart, but I’m definitely impressed about this all. It’s not an easy task to make an epic double and hold it together through the whole journey. Many of these feel very personal songs and are little windows into his life. These are also kind of like motivational tapes for me, because more than a few of them give simple, but true insights about life and by doing so they make me want to overcome the self-doubt that is continuously crippling me. Here’s a couple of great examples of Jake’s songwriting abilities. One from each of these albums that are available for 5 CAD per album over at Bandcamp. My Friends from Two Things and Little Lies from Half Of Nothing.

Hallelujah The Hills from Boston, MA dropped their new album A Band Is Something To Figure Out into our laps yesterday on the 12th of April. I really loved the previous one Have You Ever Done Something Evil?, which is one of the finest American indie rock albums of the past few years. Perhaps this new one hasn’t reached that ridiculously high level yet in my books, but we are getting closer and closer each given day. Actually these HtH albums always tend to be growers, so I wouldn’t rule out the possibility that you will find me up on the rooftops shouting “A Band is Something to Figure Out is the best thing ever!” by the time the summer comes. This is The Girl With Electronics Inside from the new Hallelujah The Hills album.

Hallelujah The Hills Website