Discolor Blind – Long Vivid Dream

The Long Vivid Dream opens up before the listener as if it were the prelude to an awakening, the moment where the mind is unawares of whether it is still in the hands of Morpheus or wit has somehow fallen for the charms of the dramatic day ahead, the crystal clear clarity that comes with the walk through Hell or the gamble of seeing Heaven. The Long Vivid Dream is such that its powerful feeling of melancholy is overwhelmingly familiar, especially to those that have held hands with the vision that their dream visits upon.(Liverpool Sound and Vision)

Goodbye Honolulu – No Honey

No Honey features the aforementioned ode to vintage musical stylings, as well as four other new cuts. It kicks off with the thumping bass line of “Back to Me,” before showing off their punk-tinged garage rock aesthetic on “Where You Wanna Go” and “Bloody Hands.” It all wraps up with “Typical” — though their blend of grungy noise, riffs and melodies is anything but.(Exclaim!)

Shawn William Clarke – Topaz

TOPAZ is gorgeous, lush and intimate, from the two-minute guitar-woodwind opener “Back to Breath” to “Gros Morne,” the dreamy closer. A handful of tracks in this otherwise graceful alliance of songs deserve special attention, though: “Autumn in New Brunswick,” with Olenka Krakus (Olenka and the Autumn Lovers), is a lovely hymn to travel; “Young in Love (At the End of the World),” with Abigail Lapell; and “You’re Lonely, Too,” with Merival on vocals and Christine Bougie on guitar (Bahamas, the Good Lovelies, Jason Collett). They’re all lyrical sketches of everyday life, love and loneliness. Krakus, Lapell and Merival all return for the intensely personal tracks “Mouse Not the Man” and “Anxiety.”(Exclaim!)

Tafari Anthony – Remember When

The Ashley Hundred – The Ashley Hundred

Somewhere between folk, rock and pop lies The Ashley Hundred. A mingling of rock guitar and psychedelic keyboard rhythms, laced with the subtle twang of banjo and driven home by powerful front-and-centre drums, their music is inherently danceable and surprisingly philosophical. The combination fits a festival stage as well as it does a rainy drive through a windswept mountain pass.(Beatroute)

And here are some we missed

Blake Berglund – Realms

There’s a sense of ambition and experimentation rarely heard in Canadian commercial country on Blake Berglund’s fifth full-length release, Realms. Keying in on the spaced-out psychedelia of Sturgill Simpson’s Metamodern Sounds in Country Music as a touchstone, Berglund has crafted an album, rather than yet another collection of “potential radio singles.” Its tone is in lock step with the punchiness of commercial radio, with a tip of the chapeau to ‘90s artists like George Strait, Alan Jackson, and Vince Gill, while the steel and organ arrangements lead to more interstellar reaches.(Beatroute)

Jason Bajada – Loveshit II (Blondie & the Backstabberz)