Album Reviews

Now that there is finally a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, we need some loud guitars to blow the cobwebs out of our heads after spending a year inside. We need choruses we can belt out loud and drums that urge us to pump our fist in the air in preparation of finally being able to go to shows again. Enter Vancouver’s Needles//Pins with their fourth album, out now on Dirt Cult Records.

This self-titled album is the follow-up to 2017’s ‘Goodnight, Tomorrow’ and while that one already had plenty to offer... well, shit just got better. Clocking in at just 23 minutes, these guys burn through ten songs with reckless abandon, big melodies, gritty vocals and enough variety to last an album twice as long. From the one-two opening combo that is the punchy, very relatable ‘Woe Is Us’ and the Iron Chic-inflected ‘A Rather Strained Apologetic’  to the organ-enhanced ‘Winnipeg ‘03’ and  the merrily bouncing ‘Baleful’, Needles//Pins have delivered a 10-song album that is guaranteed to jump-start every post-pandemic party.