HOLIDAY CROWD (the) : LP The Holiday Crowd

2016-RELEASES

With a name like theirs, it's hardly a surprise that the band's sound invokes scenes that feel quite distant from their home city of Toronto. If anything, the quartet sound as though they'd fit perfectly side by side with The Chills, Orange Juice, The Smiths, and other groups from the United Kingdom whose influence The Holiday Crowd wear proudly. Perhaps this could be partly attributed to the fact that half of them actually hail from the same place as these influential bands; bassist Alex Roberts is from the U.K. while John Coman, the group's new drummer, calls Ireland home. As far as The Holiday Crowd's North American half, guitarist Colin Bowers has reflected that he "can't fully explain [his] love of English music," but thankfully he doesn't need to; the band's sound speaks for itself.

The Holiday Crowd finds singer Imran Haniff embracing a cool swagger that highlights just how tight the band's songwriting is from cover to cover. Tracks like "Cheer Up" and "Of All Places" feature some of Roberts' most fun and punchy basslines to date, while "Rosy Lies"- which pays clear homage to Johnny Marr -- has some of the most memorable guitar work written on this side of the eighties.

It's rare that a band sounds this comfortable in and in tune with its sound so early in their discography, but upon hearing The Holiday Crowd's origin story it begins to make more sense: "Lead singer Imran Haniff first met Colin Bowers in high school, where a conversation about Colin's Stone Roses t-shirt developed into a strong bonding friendship and songwriting partnership." It seems that from the very inception of the group there was a shared vision for where their sound would explore, and now, six years after the band's formation, it's paying off in the biggest of ways.