madfolk - madfolk (Colored Vinyl, Orange)

Emerging Toronto-based indie-rock band madfolk's new self-titled album showcases a young band at the start of a promising career. With propulsive guitars, crashing drums, driving bass and killer choruses, madfolk deliver nine tracks of fizzing indie-rock. Emo-tinged lyrics and alt-country influences can be heard, with an early-2000s glow around the record reminiscent of bands like Gin Blossoms and Third Eye Blind, all packaged with a youthful zeal and a knack for writing a secret pop hook. A Toronto-centric story, the band wrote the album while living together in a house around the corner from their now-record label, Royal Mountain Records, and recorded it just down the street, too - all after playing together in bands throughout high school together, allowing them a level of experience at just 24 that many bands won't get until far deeper into their lifespan.

madfolk is the kind of album that can only be made by friends who have stuck together through all the highs and lows of life and coming into your own. By the end, they don't claim to have any answers, but instead present snapshots of all the chaos and messiness inherent in figuring it all out. The band sought to take that uncertainty and angst and make it exciting. Along the way, they also made it profound - creating a sophomore album that is the sound of a band becoming who they were always meant to be.