JON MCKIEL - EP REVIEW

Jon McKiel - Jon McKiel EP (Headless Owl) 
Jon McKiel - Jon McKiel EP

Release Date: June 2014

Jon McKiel is your new favourite lo-fi slacker indie hero from Nova Scotia, no diggity. This gorgeous new EP from the Canadian songwriter on the charmingly named Headless Owl records and features six of delightful melodies and a sense of delicateness. Opening with 'New Tracy', McKiel immediately hits his stride with a Weezer meets the Beach Boys track that strums and rattles along like a sunny afternoon in the suburbs spent riding your bike around looking for something - anything - to do. 'I Know (I Know)' has a reassuringly persistent thrum to it like Beck at his most hypnotic or We Are Scientists during an introverted period. If you want some scratchy, lounge style indie then look no further than 'Tropical Depression' which rocks out in a room at the end of a long corridor while you come round from a heavy night on whiskey and Valium.

So we're half way through and by now you should be swooning over Mr McKiel but just in case you're not, how about a bit of guitar played whilst riding a bike down some stairs accompanied by lush vocal harmonies as on 'Twin Speaks'? Or maybe try a little 'Accolades', garage-pop with a cheeky smile and a sense of menace in a brand new leather jacket that just wants to be Liam Lynch, Albert Hammond Jr and Best Coast all rolled in to one. Final track 'Chop Through' seems to be the soundtrack to a hungover/still drunk walk of shame through the searing midday sun of a Monday in downtown nowheresville past the salesmen and shoppers of the smug retail quarter. McKiel won't win any awards for slick, dancefloor fillers but if people are handing out prizes for knowing how to write a fantastic slacker pop song and then make it interesting then you've found your winner. Seriously, close the competition now and start issuing refunds for the entry fee. Game over, man, game over.

More information: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jon-Mckiel/222541413082?fref=ts

Live Dates:

17th June - The Apollo, Thunder Bay
18th June - Studio 25, Winnipeg
19th June - Vangeli's, Saskatoon
20th June - Wunderbar, Edmonton

21st June - The NAAG, Lethbridge 

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