Wintersleep are here from Canada, touring, NYC, SXSW

With all the beards, I thought they were from Williamsburg. I guess Williamsburg really does set trends.

they look like a bunch of regulars at matchless

halifax represent!

haha...about those beards...ya, williamsburg has set the trend....now all the bearder farmers from the canadian prairies and the bearder fishermens' sons from the martimes are cool....instead of just being a bunch of hicks from the middle of nowhere.

thank you williamsburg for validating our timeless fashions up hear in canada. If you could get on wearing more flannel, we'd love it...I hate going to the big city and seeming out place.

sincerely,
any skinny hick from either the prairies or the maritimes, canada

btw wintersleep are a wicked live band, go see them!

Dear Americans,

This band really, really sucks. Yes, they are big in Canada. But they're big with people who don't, how should I say this, uhm...know any better. They are boring, meat and potatoes rock with crappy songwriting and bad lyrics. There's a very, very good reason why this band, as big as they are here, haven't made any impression in the US yet. Usually if there's a good band up here, it doesn't take very long for the US to catch on (typically less than a few months). Wintersleep have been kicking around for at least 2 years now...

Sean, how do you really FEEL?

Wintersleep is funny...I totally agree with sean they are somewhat meat and potatoes rock....and I've thought a few times, why do I like this, it doesn't necessarily fit with other things I like....but then I see them live and realize they are a great band with great rock songs.....and then we you consider that the bands rhythm section played in Holy Fuck, you start to realize...yup it's straight up rock music, but it's great.

Some people are maybe just too insecure to like something that is so easy to like...it's gotta, you know, challenge you 'n shit...right sean?

and about american appeal. feist was kicking around for 10 years before american's took note. not many american's have caught on to joel plaskett or sandro perri or deep dark united or julie doiron or many other great canadian bands.

they were really great live. the drummer was a monster. some pretty memorable pop-oriented songs and then some strange, canadian, tragically hip ones too.

Weighty Ghosts is a very good song.

I'm a Hold Steady/Wrens/Black Mountain/Ladyhawk fan with the best of them, and have absolutely no problem with "rock" music or music that doesn't particularly ask much of its audience. Wintersleep is just a bad band. They may be technically good, but I'm not at all a fan of their "sound" and the very songs themselves.

Also, Joel Plaskett has a very devoted following here in Canada as well, but I'm not buying it. His sound is typically Canadian in all the wrong ways (as in, Can-con regulations Canada). Again, Joel Plaskett has been kicking around for absolute ages, and while he keeps broadening his fanbase in the motherland, the Americans have yet to bite after all these years. The last thing I'm suggesting is that America be used as some sort of taste barometer (Ladyhawk, on Jagjaguar, for instance, are a very quality act that get very little play in the US. Hopefully their new album will break them further) but sometimes another perspective can be crucial to understanding the relative merit of something if its not impressing others. The Tragically Hip and Our Lady Peace are bizarrely huge in Canada for all the wrong reasons.

Oh, and Feist has been active since she was a teenager in Calgary, but its hardly as though she was primed to be the starlet that she is today, as though during that whole decade she was shuffling to open-mic night to open-mic night like some Flight of the Conchords skit. I'm actually quite a fan of By Divine Right, but it was hardly ready for Starbucks' and your mom's SUV. Americans (AND Canadians, I might add, although they caught on, say about a year earlier) caught on because she started making bouncy, light pop songs that your mother to hum along to. Not that she's in any way a lesser artist or undeserving of the attention, but lets be serious about the source of her recent success (i.e. a vastly more mainstream friendly appeal).

"The Tragically Hip and Our Lady Peace are bizarrely huge in Canada for all the wrong reasons."

Please give these reasons as you seem to be the Canadian authority on the Canadian music scene.

I'm not saying I'm an authority on Canadian music at all. Here, ask Australia what they think of the Tragically Hip or Our Lady Peace.

Great band and even better live...

their last 2 cd's were solid

@ Sean
who made you Canada's minister of musical affairs?!?!!?

"Wintersleep is a really really bad band" you say... I bet you have really really really really baaaad taste in music

@ Sean:

Please don't make blanket statements as "representing Canada". It makes our country look bad, and it makes you sound like a fucking prick. I'm from Halifax, and Wintersleep have a very warm place in my and many of my friends' hearts.

Sure, at they're simplest form, they may sound like "meat-and-potatoes rock", but this is in no way dispositive of the quality and complexity of their music. And since when is that a bad thing, anyway? Paul Murphy has such a refreshingly deep "rock 'n' roll" voice, and Loel Campbell is one of the sickest drummers playing right now.

Also, your insinuation that Wintersleep not yet making it big in America is in some way indicative of how good of a band they are... well... I don't even know where to begin. That logic is just really ridiculous... on a million levels. In MY opinion, the only reason they're not yet big in America is because Pitchfork has not yet told Americans to like them. (see: Broken Social Scene, Arcade Fire, Wolf Parade, I'm sure there are others.)

So, yeah, I'm a big fan of Wintersleep. But, then again, I suppose I must be someone who "do[es]n't, how should I say this, uhm...know any better," right? Oh, and by the way, they are getting ready to tour in the States. I'll be seeing them in Dallas in July. They're touring with Wolf Parade, but, then again, Dan Boeckner and Spencer Krug "don't, how should I say this, uhm...know better" either.