Marlaena Moore Confronts Her Imposter Syndrome Head-On

The Edmonton songwriter cautions to be present and pay attention to what’s going on around you.

BY CHRISTINE LEONARD

Imposter syndrome isn’t just a buzzword for being uncomfortable in a particular job or role, or even your own skin. Edmonton-based singer-songwriter Marlaena Moore has recently contended with that slippery intellectual slope and talks about her struggles embracing personal confidence despite having numerous accolades and two solid LPs, Beginner (2014) and Gaze (2016), to her credit.

“The past year has been marvelous. Everything got completely flipped upside-down in my life for the best possible outcome. After Gaze was released, and after I toured that record, I fell into a little bit of a slump creatively and life-wise, as well. I felt a little stuck,” says Moore. ”Eventually, I realized I was having some mental health issues. After getting diagnosed with BPD, dealing with it and confronting myself a little bit, I realized I needed to start writing again.”

Setting aside time in the early morning hours to practice her craft, Moore connected with her creative spirit and rekindled her passion for weaving poetic pop-rock tales that leave an indelible impression on all who encounter them. It wasn’t long before the potent emotions she had been fermenting were ready to distill for public consumption and Moore approached trusted collaborators, grant-writer/manager Jesse Northey and musician/engineer Chris Dadge, for guidance in making her vision a reality.

I said, ‘This might sound kinda wild, but I’d really like Chad VanGaalen to produce the record.’ It took a little bit of convincing but we managed to get him into the studio and he was very generous with his space and his time. He was really involved as a producer, so I felt really lucky to get to borrow his brain for my songs!”

As Moore puts it, the resulting album, Pay Attention, Be Amazed, “flourished,” displaying her ever-evolving style as a guitar-wielding romance novelist and autobiographical graffiti artist rolled into one. It’s hard to imagine there’s any deception or shortcomings to be had among the immaculate melodies, swooning vocals and deeply cut love letters she inhabits in the nine painterly tracks that stretch from “I Miss You” to “Tiger Water.”

“If you listen to the whole record you’ll hear the voice of someone who feels they’re really lacking in a relationship like they are the ones not pulling their weight. The song ‘Imposter’ is about feeling as if people don’t really know the true you is the dark version and that’s the only version that is real. That song is an imposter itself: it has jangly guitar, an upbeat tempo, and a bright L.A. pop-groove sound, but it’s about a relationship completely falling apart,” Moore says.

“The thing that kept coming up with Pay Attention, Be Amazed is that something could be coming and it might not look like you expect it to. Be present and pay attention to what’s going on around you. In those moments, you can feel this clear, lucid high where you see everything for what it is. It’s beautiful and interesting and you can start pulling things apart and looking underneath. Look close enough to see the signs. Maybe everything is not as it seems when you’re going through darker times.”

Marlaena Moore’s Pay Attention, Be Amazed is available now. 

Moaning "Uneasy Laughter" - Album Review

Moaning
Uneasy Laughter

Dim the lights, crank the synths, shelve your inhibitions and prepare to fall in love with Moaning, and then lose them. It’s a classic pop song plot, but this story has legs.

Warmed by a collective chorus, the chilly opening cut “Ego” delivers thicc beats laced with disaffected vocals and intuitive nonchalance. Out-of-pocket and off-the-cuff, Morrissey-esque vocals preach against The Creator while pitting artistic narcissism against emotional empathy. 

Confronting the mod stranger in the mirror, Moaning veers into bluish baritone hues before parting the curtains of silence with a nervous gasp on “The Stranger.” Overwrought by the restless amphetamine momentum of “Running,” reflexive tempos and tentative truths lead the L.A.-based trio to draw their own conclusions on the future-drone drama “Connect the Dots” and twitchy “Coincidence or Fate.” 

Pretense blows away like clouds chased across the mountaintops on “Fall In Love” as the lush reverb of “What Separates Us” and silky smooth complexion of “Saving Face” wipe clean any remaining points of contact.

Channeling the Parlophone purity of The Pet Shop Boys, Moaning makes their own sound bed using immaculate high-thread-count linens and the downiest of fillers. The art of psychic repose never sounded more chic.

Best Track: “Ego”

By Christine Leonard

Iron Tusk "Iron Tusk III: Dreameaters" - Album Review

Iron Tusk
Iron Tusk III: Dreameaters

A double-barreled blast of unfettered prairie punk, the latest from these Siksika shredders touches down with the force of a trailer park tornado. Tearing a hole in the ozone, primary cut “Cloudeater” emerges from a dense fog of menacing reverberations with ill intent.

A spooky psychedelic tale that buzzes with old-school distortion, this devourer of smoke brandishes a blazing torch for the ghostly figure that haunted the band’s second LP, Dark Spirit. No lightweight contenders, they would give Alberta’s notorious grizzly #122 pause, landing blow after vision-blurring blow with ease.

Turning the other cheek with “Dreaming City,” the black leather-clad crew hits the b-side by running amok in an urban wilderness of their own making. Considered one of Alberta’s worst-kept secrets, the foursome proves to be surprisingly agile as they absorb and reflect heavily horrible influences like Motörhead and Forbidden Dimension. The second track’s fiery vocals scorch the Earth in anticipation of a magnetic storm full of percussive thunder.

Solidified by the grounding presence of recently conscripted guitar vet Craig Bear Chief, Iron Tusk is equipped to reach further and higher in leaving their claw mark on the Canadian music scene. Howling at the moon is only a mic check.

Best Track: “Dreaming City”

By Christine Leonard

Neck of the Woods "The Annex of Fire" - Album Review

Neck of the Woods
The Annex of Ire
Pelagic Records

The newest dispatch from thorny Vancouver metal arbour Neck of the Woods finds its rhythm method in midst of madness.

Six years into their licks, the progressive outfit’s impressive arch of ascent from a two-song demo in 2013, to the unveiling of their eponymous EP in 2015, to producing the sawblade hum of their 2017 debut LP, The Passenger, is incontestable.

Chromatic technical prowess gleams on “Ambivalence,” while the myopic soul-seeking of “Vision Loser'' levels the landscape like an atomic blast. Jeff Radomsky’s voice rises above the fray of “Strange Consolation” before he finds solace in the guitar wire spires that pierce the celestial vault on “The Tower.”

Built on a slicker-than-wet-asphalt foundation, thanks to the ministrations of Rain City Recorder producer/engineer Jesse Gander, the entire album hangs together with palpable cohesion and clarity of purpose.

From the door-kick introduction provided by the title track it’s apparent that Neck of the Woods aren’t giving up any ground when it comes to the gritty gains they’ve made.

Executing an exhaustive survey of how to stage a multi-genre metal war without sacrificing substance, Neck of the Woods finds room to roam within the untidy confines of The Annex of Ire.

Best Track: “The Tower”

By Christine Leonard

Sepultura "Quadra" - Album Review

Sepultura
Quadra

How do you supersede a 30-year career that has irrevocably altered the tides of global metal while spawning 15 albums that put Brazil on the heavy music map? You simply do what Sepultura has always done — unleash the power of monumental thrash amplified by orchestral drama and the tribal tempos of the Amazon.

More than a “Means to an End,” the hyperbolic Quadra (from the Portuguese word for ‘sport court’) reverberates with vision-inducing venom, thanks to an enthusiastic delivery by the iconic band’s current roster.

A demon-throated throwback, Quadra finds new glory in the old school appeal of formative releases like Beneath the Remains (1989) and Arise (1991). Ripped from the mean streets of Belo Horizonte, the bellicose war drums of “Capital Enslavement” and dizzying favela architecture of “Last Time” keep the BPM burning high.

Further afield, the aggressive stance of “Ali,” stuttering malice of “Raging Void” and slashing ambition of “The Pentagram” confirm that vocalist Derrick Green and guitarist Andreas Kisser remain at the top of their virtuosic game.

Dissatisfied with watching history repeat itself, these magical death machine messiahs feel bound to keep blasting out “thrash metal anthems for a fucked-up age” and we’re lucky they succeed in doing so, season after season.

Best Track: “Ali”

By Christine Leonard

Nada Surf "Never Not Together" - Album Review

Nada Surf
Never Not Together

Rise and shine, 90s bred New York outfit Nada Surf’s newest album comes equipped with an indie-rock foam cycle that’ll wash your brain clean of any lingering debris. 

From the tangerine-hued opener “So Much Love” to the strummy escape of “Come Get Me” (a la Nirvana’s “Grandma Take Me Home”), guitarist/vocalist Matthew Caw bumps up the thermostat one motivational outburst at a time. 

A harmonic turnaround from the cold clarity of their previous release, You Know Who You Are (2016), Never Not Together gets up close and personal on the inward-looking “Live Learn & Forget” and the emotionally generous “Just Wait.” 

The struggle to let memories fade comes to a head on the cerebral “Something I Should Do” with its apostrophic observational advice. Hard-won lessons, such as “put your anger away,” “don’t need to be right, it’s overrated anyhow” and “don’t fear death” dominate the typically easy-breezy surf band’s lyrical lines. 

Buoyant rollers divulge the wisdom that has brought them to the brink and then allowed them to pull back from the edge. Collectively thumbing their zinc-smeared noses at the dark, Nada Surf point their boards towards the sun and paddle out to embrace the “Holy Math” of destiny. 

Best track: "Live Learn & Forget"

By Christine Leonard

Some of the Bestest Alberta Releases of 2019

Gone Cosmic
Sideways in Time
Kozmik Artifactz 

A supernova of a musical experiment, Gone Cosmic warps time and space around mindblowing guitar riffs, tetragonal rhythms and the air-raid warning vocals of an onyx-tressed siren, Abbie Thurgood.

A basement-jam brainchild conceptualized by stringslingers Devin “Darty” Purdy and Brett Whittingham (of Calgary’s stoner rock mainstay, Chron Goblin), this intrepid crew blasts through alien landscapes navigating dire turns, deep pockets and soaring incantations that put the legions of Mars on high alert.

Interstellar jazz meets terrestrial grit as Gone Cosmic takes their audience on an acid-fuelled rocket ride around the sun before splashing down in a sea of psych-rock tranquility.

• Christine Leonard 

Sunglaciers
Foreign Bodies
Independent 

A sweat-slicked fever dream of an album, Sunglaciers’ first full-length release reverberates with an electric intellect that shimmers like a sunset reflecting off a skyscraper.

Afloat in an emotionally clouded atmosphere, Sunglaciers melt away artifice and presumption with an earnest appeal for the freedom and room to spread their wings.

Echoing the smooth transitions and pensive introspection of indie wavers The Psychedelic Furs and The Jesus and Mary Chain, singer-guitarist Evan Resnik feels his way through a forest of fuzzy memories while Mathieu Blanchard (drums), Kyle Crough (bass) and Helen Young (synths) seal the melodic mood rock envelope with a probing kiss and a subconscious prayer.

• Christine Leonard 

 nipiy
Arts & Crafts 

Drawing on their Indigenous roots, this amiskwaciy (Edmonton, Treaty 6) phenom takes their attention-grabbing name from their Plains Cree heritage.

The cooly contemporary, culturally significant, band’s debut on the Arts & Crafts label finds vocalist/guitarist/storyweaver Kris Harper, (cedar log) drummer Marek Tyler and synth player/bassist Matthew Cardinal carving out a perch for “those who don’t seem to fit in for myriads of reasons,” while creating a modern, atmospheric album that speaks to all quarters.

Sticking out their necks and letting down their hair, the neo-trad trio traces a path that runs to the heart of Canada’s musical past, present and future.

• Christine Leonard