Earlstown Winter is a very Canadian band.
Stomping Tom sang about snowmobiles and PEI potato haulers. The Tragically Hip probably know the career stats of every small town kid who ever laced up a pair of skates. That’s Canadiana. Earlstown Winter are Canadian.
This might be the only place on Earth where they could have come into being.
Canada, as a country, is the second largest on the planet. Yet, as a nation, more people live in the state of California. That leaves us a lot of empty space. We all know that to get anywhere takes time and there’s always one last stretch of highway before home. You hear this in Earlstown Winter.
They write beautiful songs. Musically, the album is well executed, dynamically arranged, and very easy to listen to. Yet, in the lyrics, on this album and their previous release, there is a sadness. But it is by no means depression, complaint, or surrender. It is longing, a Canadian longing. It is life as a road trip on those long Canadian highways, that loneliness we all feel as the sun sets and the road hasn’t ended yet. It is the loneliness of the journey.
But the songs on this album are all appreciative of the place you happen to be while travelling to where you want to be; you are only passing through this spot but take it in nonetheless.
It’s an album of songs of transition that you can’t help but smile when listening to because we have all been there, a musical trek that is not running away from something but moving forward, towards something better.
Listen to Jasper HERE
Earlstown Winter
stories of my life & city 