On Sept. 15, Winnipeg-based band Royal Canoe came to Algonquin College. Opening for them on the fifth night of their nine-day Canadian tour was Toronto-based alternative pop band Highs.
They performed at the college’s Observatory.
With the tables set away from the stage, the gaping space between the two can be intimidating, but frontman Matt Peters coaxed the crowd up to the stage before they started playing, ensuring the audience were a part of their performance.
Opening with “Show Me Your Eyes” off of their 2013 album Today We’re Believers, the band immediately roped in the crowd.
Onstage, Peters resembles a passionate puppetmaster in the best possible way; he’s constantly tinkering with dials and beats on the soundboard, creating pounding, sharp walls of drums, and bellowing morphed vocals.
Speaking over the phone while driving from Hamilton to Kingston, keyboardist and vocalist Matt Schellenberg described the band’s upcoming album.
“It’s maybe a little more . . . energetic or colourful, I think, than the last record,” he said.
Schellenberg said they’ve taken a page out of the book of ‘90s hip-hop, and have worked some brass onto the new record as well.
According to Schellenberg, the songwriting on their new record leans towards their very first venture, 2010’s Co-op Mode.
“I think on this record we maybe returned to a tiny bit of the spirit of Co-op Mode,” he said.
“There’s a little more playfulness, and there are some character songs. Co-op Mode was a lot of songs written from the perspective of different characters, whereas Today We’re Believers was very personal, and this record is still very personal, but there’s definitely some writing from different perspectives,” he said.
While the band calls both Selkirk and Winnipeg home, Winnipeg is where they create music.
After touring for two years following the release of Believers, the band returned to a different Winnipeg from the one they’d left, according to Schellenberg.
“So this record, the Winnipeg stuff in it [is] grappling with just getting older in a city that you’re in less and less . . . And with some of your identity issues that come along with that,” Schellenberg said.
Royal Canoe will be wrapping up their Canadian tour Sept. 19 with a final performance in Toronto.
There’s currently no definitive release date for their upcoming record yet.
