Listening to The Romantics reminds me of hanging out with an old friend. The kind you can go months without seeing, but fall back into familiar rhythm in no time at all; the kind with whom you can tear up the town, or just sit on your bed, and have a great time either way.
The debut LP from Canada’s own Inlet Sound offers a rare mix of energy, quiet emotion, and sheer entertainment which eludes many albums. Catchy, upbeat songs, like “Magnetic North” and “Mademoiselle”—with plenty of references to lead singer and guitarist Michael Wexler’s hometown, Montreal—pull listeners in, while slower numbers like “Mail Order” or “Amber Skies” leave them feeling relaxed, if slightly reflective.
Inlet Sound first formed three years ago when Wexler met keyboardist Sean Hardy, living in a student house in Hamilton, Ontario. From there, the band has experienced some turnover, ultimately adding Steven Gore (violin, mandolin), Curtis Murphy (bass), and Katie MacLean (drums, vocals) to the lineup. The group draws from diverse musical influences, including ‘70s folk revival, blues, and electronic. This diversity led to the adoption of the group’s unique name.
“Because we come from fairly different musical backgrounds, we wanted something twofold,” says Wexler. “One, an homage to Canadiana a little bit, because there is still that folky element to us. And second-fold, we wanted to have a name that was reflective of convergence … and the image of an inlet or a sound—our name is kind of redundant in a sense, because an inlet and a sound are the same thing—was that visual imagery of things coming together.”
The name of the album, too, hints at their attitude towards music.
“Sean … threw it out there: ‘Why don’t we call it The Romantics?’” recalls Wexler. “It just seemed to be a perfect marker for all the … concepts of the idealization of youth, and romanticism and impending cynicism and all these things that come with growing up.… It just seemed like a nice umbrella for what we were going for, plus it’s very grand-sounding, and that’s what we wanted to go for also.”
With comparisons being drawn to big names such as The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, and Mumford and Sons, Inlet Sound certainly delivers. Wexler cites working with Canadian producer Laurence Currie (Sloan, Hey Rosetta!, Wintersleep) as a big reason for the recording process having gone as well as it did.
“It’s just a lot of fun to be around [Currie]. And I think another good thing from a creative standpoint is … [to] allow other ideas to come flow together and make it a little more of a collaborative effort … that was a really rewarding experience,” says Wexler.
However, what challenged Wexler the most was not knowing how, exactly, the project would turn out when all was said and done.
“Because [the recording process] was such a long stretch of time … we didn’t want to lose the idea that gave [the album] push from the beginning,” he admits. “It was kind of hard in the sense that … we had to see it change, and I guess that was the hardest thing, because we lose control a little bit; and I think I’m a bit of control freak sometimes, so to not really know how it was gonna change was both exciting and terrifying at the same time.”
The Romantics is very much a mix of the old and new, reworked Inlet Sound classics matched with completely new tracks written to fit the album’s grand, emotional, coming-of-age theme.
“We had about three or four songs on the album that were old songs that we totally revisited, and then there were a whole bunch of other ones that were totally new … based on the concept that we had for this record and what we were going through,” says Wexler. “There are specific tracks on this record, like “Romantics I” and “[Romantics] II”, [that] come from a similar place and a similar concept both musically and emotionally. They’re supposed to be the thesis and antithesis to each other.”
For a band at the outset of their career, Inlet Sound are anything but amateur. As for the future, Wexler keeps it simple.
“Growth in terms of being able to write and create different type of stuff,” says Wexler regarding the band’s future plans. “Growth in terms of being able to play to new audiences and new places, bigger audiences.… Just to be able to keep loving what we’re doing—because if you don’t love it any more, then it just doesn’t seem worth it; and right now we’re loving it.”
Inlet Sound plays at Divan Orange on Nov. 18 with Pugs and Crows. Doors open at 9 p.m. Admissions are $10.
