New Music: July Talk

By Rachel Woodward, September 8 2016 —

After releasing their self-titled debut album in 2013 and the EP For Your Bloodshot Eyes in 2014, Toronto-based July Talk return with Touch — a 10-track album featuring some of the group’s most evolved and also disorienting work yet. 

Lead singers Peter Dreimanis and Leah Fay fill the album with tortured ballads of the maneuver through modern-day love affairs. The album demonstrates a more mature sound from the group, but tracks like opener “Picturing Love” set the tone for an upbeat album, while “Beck + Call” carries this energy with decent lyricism and a consistent, heavy rhythm.

The album shifts with “Now I Know,” where the sound transfers to a strange mix between light pop and Dreimanis’s dark vocals. The track brings a tone where July Talk’s signature contrasting voices don’t work as well as fans might be used to.

The album tends to fluctuate between dark, heavy sound and lighter pop, but energy returns with “Push + Pull” before the title track leaves the album on a similar note that is started with.

Though the album demonstrates a more mature sound from the band, there is a lack of a consistency throughout the album. The vocal contrast — while still present — seems to feel less honed that it was in the group’s first album.

Touch demonstrates what seems to be a stepping stone for the band to find a more concrete sound, while still utilizing Dreimanis and Fay as contrasting vocals in an organized way.

The album will no doubt still quench eager fans’ thirst for new music from the band. July Talk is touring the album through North America and Europe for the rest of the year.