Bend Sinister: Stories of Brothers, Tales of Lovers

    Bend Sinister is a Vancouver based band, whose name was taken from a Alexander Nabokov novel of the same name. They formed in 2001 in the small town of Kelowna before moving to Vancouver, where they have since then even played at the recent Olympics held in British Columbia. They are on the Distort Entertainment label, better known for its hardcore and punk genre, based out of Toronto. Bend Sinister is actually part of their sister division, called Distort Light, because they are not hardcore and barely punk. Their style is more of progressive rock, but not in the 15 minute solos and just plain technical music sense; rather a mix of power pop ballade (minus the horrible 80s beat), some Jazz, Steely Dan, Queen, the energy of Muse and the playfulness of The Format or fun..
    Bend Sinister has released a few different albums: their full debut Through the Broken City (2005); a self-titled Bend Sinister EP (2007); the album I'm blogging about today Stories of Brothers, Tales of Lovers (2008); and they just released a 5-6 track EP this year called Spring Romance. Their self-titled EP perhaps contains their best song, "Time Breaks Down", which incidentally was why Distort Entertainment picked them up. Then, their latest release, Spring Romance, I have not heard much of and have heard good things of, but the one song they have on the Myspace in my opinion is not as unique and of high quality as their former work. So, I'm concerned that they have lowered their standards or something.
    The first half of Stories of Brothers, Tales of Lovers is comprised of "stories of brothers", while the latter the "tales of lovers". Here's a brief look at what you can expect along with the 14 track listing: (1) The News (2) Brothers of Humankind (3) The Same Things (4) Jimmy Brown* (5) CT (6) Careless (7) Because Because (8) Give Into the Night (9) Dr. Lee (10) Juliana (11) Once Again* (12) Give Into the Night (reprise) (13) Demise (14) City Lights
* uploaded to the MixPod player
    One thing Bend Sinister promises, is that they are not shy and go full out, stylistically, with unafraid vocals and ear popping electric guitar solos at the apex of a great tune. Many of these songs, in fact, slowly crescendo to their acme, before returning to the quieter more acoustic nature. They are driving rhythmically and very memorable melodically, much like Steely Dan's music. Furthermore, the rock organ is fantastic throughout, especially on "Once Again" which is so obviously reminiscent of Muse, and there is a lot of lo-fi piano too without being obnoxiously out of tune. I've uploaded two tracks to the MixPod player, because I love this band that much, and to give a tune from the "stories" and "tales".