Basia Lyjak has broken the mold folks... this incredibly talented female rock practitioner from Toronto, Canada, has emerged with a laughingly brilliant and innovatively excellent EP that rips at the very foundations of once sleepy North American rock and wakes the whole world up with the kinda force that could repair the melting ice sheets at either ends of the north or south poles!
Stuttering unleashes one of Canada's most outstanding female alt rock vocalists upon the world ahead of an astonishingly bright and refreshing musical ensemble that includes exceptional drum work Vince Peck and equally brilliant bass playing from Andrew Lauzon. Stuttering features the kind of high energy rock we all crave for but can never get enough of and to have that energy delivered by Basia in this uniquely eventful fashion is one hell of a treat for the ears!
Bye Bye features the dynamics and energy we first drew blood upon in Stuttering but we get a closer inspection of Basia's astonishing vocal prowess with the kinda range that makes the VU meters go insane right up to the red bit! Again, the musicianship is absolutely incredible in it's tightness, complexity, and in it's right round yer head delivery. What an excellent production job this track really is! I'm amazed National Canadian TV and Radio haven't woken up properly with this kind of evidence of excellence knocking about! Makes ya proud to be Canadian when for the past few years you felt a little er.. ostracized by the stuff from over the border! Basia Lyjak just took care of all that!
Plastic is the song that alerted me to Basia Lyjak's uniqueness as an innovative and highly imaginative recording artist. The songwriting is intelligently amazing with richly observed meaning wrapped around the lyrics and then there's the return of the magical arrangements and production that we have been privileged to without exception. I'd love to See Basia live and I'm gonna have to sort that out sooner rather than later. Plastic has, withut a doubt, placed Basia Lyjak on the highest pedestal for me... the girl has little competition in the independent world and absolutely none in the major market place! What a treat!
Torn has some fabulous guitar work going on all over the place with some superb string arrangements thrown in for good measure. Vocals are flawlessly, powerfully, engaging as they grab at your consciousnessto demand attantion from your sub-conscious. Torn is an unbeliveably clever head-dominating rock adventure... you hear it for days after the stop button has been pressed and fall to your knees in awe at the way in which the microphones were set up and the mixing desk messed with. A phenomenally orginal and outwardly excellent piece of recent rock and roll history being written right beside your ears!
Lies is the last track on this cruelly short EP. What an amazing experience this has been and what a reall eye opener for those who thought Canada was only capable of the likes of Nickleback with respect to the rock genre. Lies takes just about everything you ever conceived to be true about female fronted rock and turns it all on its head! A hugely important song to finish off a hugely important CD release. Basia Lyjak and Co have managed to deliver the undeliverable.. a magnificent piece of work worthy of much praise and appreciation and deserving a hell of alot more respect from this industry!
See Basia Lyjak out at your earliest convenience Ladies and Gentlemen... cos to be honest we've all been asleep to this kind of magnificence for far too long!
