Aaron Goldstein has spent the better part of a decade as pedal steel guitarist to some of Canada’s most revered songwriters (City and Colour, Cowboy Junkies, Daniel Romano, Kathleen Edwards, Bry Webb, Matt Mays, Elliott Brood, Lee Harvey Osmond to name a few), and more recently, producer to dozens of young artists and bands – but his Espanola LP has been in the works for just as long. A session in Saskatchewan in 2014 yielded half of the album’s cuts, while the remaining songs were written and recorded over the last three years at Goldstein’s Baldwin Street Sound headquarters in Toronto. The LP mines influences that could be called anything from college-rock to power-pop, with hefty nods to stoner- and classic-rocks and Americana. It is heavy on the formula of big riffs and hooks that will be familiar to fans of Goldstein’s previous outfit, Huron. A cast of friends and fellow sidepeople appear throughout, though the LP also sees Goldstein covering almost every position in the band at various points. The album is out now!

You should definitely take a listen, especially if you like guitar. It is a solid album that is best paired with a group of friends over beers.