The Sorrys

As a music fan in his mid-thirties, there's something comforting about seeing silverbacks jump on stage, turn up the amps and fist pump through huge chorus after huge chorus. It’s no secret that most of today’s musicians are fueled by apathy, irony and self loathing and it might be hard to believe, but this wasn’t always the case. Not too long ago people actually wanted to dance, sing along and leave a show sweat soaked and alive, instead of standing at the back nodding along more concerned with incoming texts.

Thankfully, there are a few acts happy to channel The Replacements and rely on big chords and catchy riffs instead of lo-fi subtleties, long bended steel notes or blips and bleeps. Obviously, Boston’s The Hold Steady is the first band that people think of, but if you keep driving North for about a day, you will find a local act you can hold in the same high regard. The Sorrys have the same mission; they want us to feel our heart thump along with each kick drum beat and crunching power chord and feel like we fit in.

I suppose the vocal similarities between Trevor Millet and Craig Finn will lead to more than a few comparisons, but unlike the critical darlings and fan proclaimed saviors of rock n’ roll, The Sorry’s don’t fixate on looking back to drunken nights, drugs and glory days that probably weren’t all that glory filled. Sure, they might not be able to match The Hold Steady hook for hook and probably won’t have young Canadians praising their name and screaming along word for word while hoisting pints in the air, but there is something more realistic, more mature about sad songs that make you feel good and are just as powerful to a 30-year old as they are to a 20-year old.

You never get the impression that The Sorrys are obsessed with the past, even if their preferred sounds and musical influences are entrenched in it. They are more than ok with growing up, they just never felt the need to stop loving electric guitars and big drums. The carefree joy of Achievement Races jump starts the record and you realize the Haligonian rockers simply kept playing music, kept drinking beer and kept on living. Instead of trying to save rock n’ roll, The Sorrys assumed it was doing ok on it's own and simply kept the good times rolling.

The shimmering guitar notes of Roses and heavy riffage of Articulate keep the record driving forward, but the band also shows the natural evolution a band needs on the Long Winters-ish Breath to Breeze. As fun as it is to let go and give into classic hooks like the band delivers on Poppy, a little bit of depth makes the record a more complete listen. Every night can't be filled with booze heavy nonsense, and not every crush is life or death any more, but The Sorrys show us that turning 30 isn't a death sentence and maybe, just maybe, your best days aren't behind you.

- herohill.com

“I’m not sure how we won this. I can only assume Gunt’s fans don’t have computers and Scribbler’s fans are too stoned to use theirs,” jokes Sorrys vocalist Trevor Millett. He describes his band’s award-winning hijinks as “too messed up to walk but we can still dance. Too messed up to talk but we can still sing. There’s just always something. Mostly I get told about the crazy stuff later (even when I’m at the centre of it), so it would be hearsay if I was to provide particular examples. And I’m not given to hearsay.” The success of The Sorrys and their appropriately titled album The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards doesn’t fall into hearsay territory though: the band is runner-up for best band to get trashed to, be blown away by, new band and best in the city.
- The Coast

If there's an East Coast CD that's been haunting me all summer, it would have to be the Halifax classic alt-rock quartet The Sorry's marvelous debut album released late in the spring of 2007. Cheekily entitled The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, it's an epic 14-song collection that has renewed my faith in the ability of rock-and-roll music to be grandly heroic and endearingly awkward at the same time.

One of the things that distinguishes the disc right off the bat is its unrestrained enthusiasm. Almost every song sports an industrial-strength chorus; there's honest-to-god guitar solos aplenty. It's like the foursome have suddenly forgot all the hallmarks of Halifax indie-rock history: there's no irony or underplaying, or longing for long-lost cabaret styles or folk forms. Instead, there's plenty of upfront passion, outright energy and--to put it frankly--sheer guts.

That's why I love this record so much. It draws a direct line to American alt-rock bands like those lovable '80s losers The Replacements and the current Eastern Seaboard critical darlings The Hold Steady.

The Sorrys make music that never forgets its audience. Each tune seems to be about the everyday experiences of normal people. Sure, there's a quirky humour and sense of detachment on some of the tunes, but every single one is so closely observed that the lyrics seem vivid and lifelike enough that they might have stumbled out of some short story by Ernest Hemingway.

The qualities exuded by the band on the album might come from the fact that like The Hold Steady, these are 'mature' guys who already know the truth of real jobs, careers and adult responsibilities. No wonder lead vocalist Trevor Millett sounds so bemused and exasperated; he sings about a zone dominated by images of adolescent longing which has been mediated by the absurdities and compromises that arise with growing up and growing old.

It's a fascinating tension that runs through the album. And while many of song titles are terse, one-word monikers, they actually hide far more complex ideas. The opening track, for example, Druthers, plays off the quizzical question of what exactly is a 'druther'. The core of the song actually rolls along with a far more immediate pop sentiment of the phrase--repeated over and over--of 'here I am today I'm smiling'. It's an irresistible chorus, full of giddy joy and abandon, tempered only by Millett's enthused, occasional tuneless yelps.

The Sorrys, in fact, seem to be mildly embarrassed by their ability to amass such endless agreeable pop hooks. The album's second song, the minute-and-a-half throwaway True Love, could have been smoothed out into a perfect three-minute pop classic. Instead, they band barrel through it as if they're in too much of a hurry to get on to their next, more serious selection.

When they do settle in for song that lasts more than five minutes--as in the laddish sing-a-long Pass It Around or the album-closing Lords Of Fog Town, the band approaches a late-sixties psychedelic aesthetic that might be a bit beyond their four-piece garage-band approach. Still, the longer songs reveal the band's unbounded ambitions, something that makes the album all the more charming.

With a rock-solid rhythm section in drummer Steve Baur and bassist Richard Herbert and a genuine guitar hero in Jim Cameron--whose playing is one of the sublime pleasures of their premiere album--The Sorry's have come roaring out of the gate with a debut compact disc that should rocket them to the very forefront of the East Coast Music scene.

For more information about upcoming gigs and album availability, check out www.thesorrys.com.

© Ron Foley Macdonald 2007
- Aliant.net

Upon listening to the Sorrys' debut album, The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, I found myself flooded with vivid imagery of early high school days, the days before the parent induced pressures of preparing for college and "life" had begun to fully sink in. Campfire-scented-nostalgia floated hazily through my brain as a fuzz-laden catchy punk riff punched its way into my psyche via powerchord-lightning bugs. The album title, The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, seems completely apropos for this Sorrys-inspired trip back in time.

Ninth grade brought on the flexing of newly formed alterna-muscles; I had finally come to terms with the awkwardly chubby and torturous middle school years of trying to fit in with the "J. Crew." I began to write terribly melodramatic poetry by dripping candlelight about the horrific state of my privileged suburban life and bemoan the idiocy of pretty much every beautiful girl in school. I shopped at Goodwill. I smoked pot in the backseats of cars driven by older boys. I listened to punk and lied to my parents. That's it, and as the lyrics to the threesome inspired "Trina and Tara" go, "They had some pot and I had some cheap wine, we listened to Camper VanBeethoven and got stoned for quite some time." Though I wasn't listening to Camper VanBeethoven at the time of this nostalgic fall backwards, my desires seemed just that simple: pot, making out and Mad Dog 20/20.

The tempo of the album is, in most places, a bit too slow and clean, and in some spots almost leans too heavily into a twangy-country sound to be considered outright punk, but the riffs are definitely reminiscent of the early emo-sounds of the mid-to-late '90s, and lead singer, Trevor Millett's voice is a dead ringer for Davey VonBohlen of the Promise Ring.

Acoustically, The Last Clear Thought flirts with the fuzzy lo-fi Guided By Voices-era sound and features Dinosaur Jr inspired guitar solos, but the lyrics are definitely much more rooted in early punk/emo with its simplistic, almost-opaque references to youthful love and the passing of time, but peppered with just enough obscurity to make it more universally poignant. Sporting the mixing and mastering of Todd Tobias, most well known for his work with GBV and Robert Pollard, the album harkens back to days when things, in retrospect, seemed simpler—chords were of the power variety and your top priority was figuring out how to get supplies (ie drugs) before your friend showed up during third period so you could ditch and go camping at the falls. Sexual experimentation and testing the limits of all varieties was the name of the game: "You are patient. I am alive. There is the river. I dare you to dive" (from the song "The Falls").

"Let's hook off and go to the falls" is the chorus to "The Falls", the most reminiscence-inspiring song of the album, and the one that I can't help but focus on even though I'm not completely sure of the meaning of "hook off." There was a place called Potter's Falls that we frequented in my adolescent pot-smoke-filled days. I would innocently tell my parents that "the girls" and I wanted to go hiking around the falls and make friendship bracelets around the campfire at night. These were the days before cell phones, and time in the woods meant time completely free from the restrictions of parents, the wet dream of every 16 year old. The actuality of these friendship-bracelet-making overnight excursions entailed cases of beer packed into the barely functioning cars of multiple minors, a few tents, handles of SoCo, various other drugs and nudity… lots of co-ed nudity. Oh yeah, did I mention drunken nighttime leaps from rocky ledges into the pool of the waterfall? And nudity? Right. The second time I ever had sex was at Potter's Falls. I tripped on acid at Potter's Falls and threw my watch into the frothy waters of the falls because "time, just like, totally doesn't make any sense—who needs time, dude? Who needs a watch, dude?"

Years later, after a few years away at college, I returned home for a visit and took my mom to this sacred ground. I took my mom to the Falls. This was a significant moment. Though while we were there I never fully articulated the precise and wild nature of the things that went on there during my adolescence (and if they read this review, my parents will surely be slightly shocked), bringing my mom to the falls signaled a passing and a growth, a recognition of the effects of time. Though The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards inspired this incredibly vivid trip down memory lane, I can't help but feel that, in many ways, I've moved beyond all that: in music and in lifestyle. Though I want to love this for its warm nostalgic towel awaiting the post-skinny-dip plunge, I have to recognize that things progress; they change, they have to. And though metaphorically falling backwards is sometimes useful in terms of perspective (and whimsical fun), staying back there, in terms of lifestyle and music, isn't.

- Crawdaddy! Magazine

The music scene in Halifax is depressing, says the city's golden son and the Sorrys frontman, Trevor Millett, "but not for the reasons you'd think. The problem for me is that there are just too many excellent bands here right now and there is no way I can see all of them play." How sad. Only a true music aficionado could find such fortune depressing. And Millett is the perfect example of that.

In search of fun, therapy and validation, Millett began making music with The Sorrys about five years ago, messing around in basements with a few guitars and a cassette recorder. That is before developing the band, along with friends Steve Baur, Jim Cameron, and Richard Herbert, into what it is today: a catchy little four-piece doing straight-forward indie rock with a touch of pop sensibility. They've just released their debut album, The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, and from the strength of songs like "Druthers" and "The Falls," the band's talents are obvious.

"Making the album was a sporadic affair. We all have full time jobs and families so it was tough to make time and pull funds together to record." Plus, Millett admits, "We have a bad habit of getting really fucked up in the studio and bringing Charles [Austin] [current Sorrys producer and former member of the Superfriendz] along for the ride, so that didn't make the process any quicker." Nonetheless, in the fall of 2006, "We pulled our shit together and went in all-business to finish up the album." The finished LP was sent down to Todd Tobias, a recording engineer, producer and musician in Ohio, to be transferred to two-inch tape, mixed and mastered.

"We considered sending it out to labels to gauge interest, but in the end we didn't want to deal with the waiting game. It had been long enough and it was time to get the fucker out there." So they did. On their own.

And why not? After all, Millett says, "Things are returning to the way they were before record companies got in the way. You make music, you travel, you play it to different people and they pay you. If anything, it's easier now because it's cheap to produce your own CDs and you can sell them yourself or sell them online." Besides, he reasons, "If the Butthole Surfers can get rich, there are no real barriers."
- Soundproof Magazine

If you are looking for the current elder statesmen of the Halifax music scene, look no further than The Sorrys. Sure, the band has only been around since 2004, but with two professors, an ESL teacher and an ad writer in its line-up, no one is going to mistake the band for students.

Not that it's an issue with vocalist Trevor Millet. "I think the bigger issue in terms of our age is that it's more difficult to get out to see bands and become ensconced in the scene," he says. "Most of us have families and when we get our chance to head out it's almost always to get together, drink beer and write music or play shows. That's our party time."

The Sorrys' next big party takes place July 20 at Gus' Pub, when the band will celebrate the release of its debut album The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, a 14-track smorgasborg of classic indie rock that the band recorded with fellow scene veteran Charles Austin.

To support the release the band will tour with some Maritimes dates, but Millet says he doesn’t expect them to hit the road full-time in the near future. "There won't be any hopping in a van and heading out on the cliche. That's why no one will ever sign us, although a guy from some label in the States called Merge keeps calling. Have you ever heard of them? Probably some dog and pony show."
- The Coast

When I was attending junior high school in the 1980s, we would use the word "sorry" to describe something that failed to earn our approval. For example: "Last night's episode of Airwolf was sorry". If something was labeled "sorry" then there was a pretty good chance that it would carry the "sorry" label for an extended period of time. To my knowledge, the "sorry" label was rarely lifted and to this day there are adults still bitter over the fact that their shoes, trapper keeper, or lunch box was considered "sorry".

The Sorrys are neither weak nor sorry because their slacker rock album, The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, is pretty good. To me, they have a thing going on that's similar to Camper Van Beethoven and The Fall. We have good music plus great lyrics so there is really nothing to complain about. 'Restaurant' is my favorite track on The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards and I agree with lead singer Trevor Millett when he sings, "I never wanted to be one of those couples who argues in a restaurant". Couples who argue in restaurants are sorry. Oh man, that last line was totally weak.
- erasingclouds.com

On the strength of bands like Buck 65 and Dog Day, the Nova Scotia music scene has been gaining recent national attention in a big way, "so much so that it's depressing," says Trevor Millett, frontman for Halifax indie-popsters The Sorrys, but not for the reasons you'd think. The problem for him is that "there are just too many excellent bands here right now and there is no way I can see all of them."

The reason behind this is two-fold, he contends, the first being that the province, and Halifax in particular, is finally "getting over its Celtic hangover." Not that Millett has a problem with Celtic music. "It's just that the scene itself wasn't organic," he explains. "It was actually a government initiative. The tourism department decided they needed to hang their hat on something, so they thought, hey, let's celebrate our Celtic roots."

Subsequently, they started "throwing money at anyone who wore tartan and had a fiddle," says Millett. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing either, he says, because some deserving talent did reap the benefits. But some not so deserving did the same, he says, and "the result was that Nova Scotia became perceived throughout Canada as a 'fiddle town' at the expense of every other genre of music in the area," including Nova Scotia's unique hip-hop, folk and indie-rock scenes.

But, thanks in part to the recognition some of the province's current brood of indie groups are receiving, in addition to the increased ease of music sharing facilitated by new technologies, contemporary Nova Scotian bands are finally managing to step out from under the shadow of fiddle music, as well as that cast by their indie-rock precursors, bands like Sloan, The Superfriendz, Jale and Thursh Hermit. That Nova Scotia bands are now able to find their own voice, Millett contends, is another reason why the province's music scene is taking off.

"I'm not saying that every Halifax band in the 90s sounded like Sloan, but their straight ahead pop influence was undeniable. There are still bands here who summon Sloan but there are also many who now take their cues from Neutral Milk Hotel, M Ward, Modest Mouse, The Stooges, XTC, Lucinda Williams, Faust, Johnny Cash, Sabbath, Bowie, Low, Stereolab, The Bee Gees, The Exploited, and on and on. You get the picture," he says. Musical freedom, it seems, has arrived in Nova Scotia.

Millett's group, The Sorrys, are just one of the bands to come out of this new creative atmosphere, following their own inspirations and taking advantage of new options for music distribution. They formed, innocuously enough, at a party where Millett ran into his future guitar player, Jim Cameron.

"We pretty much started writing songs together that night," Millett says. "He'd play guitar and I'd just start singing stuff. Soon after we were spending pretty much every Friday night in each other's basements making up songs in a free form manner and taping the entire evening on cassettes. Then we'd listen to the cassette later on when we were sober and look for nuggets which we'd then develop into songs." With the additional talents of Richard Herbert on bass and Steven Baur on drums, by early 2005 The Sorrys were ready to record. They linked up with Charles Austin, best known as one of The Superfriendz and for recording people like Buck 65, Joel Plasket and Matt Mays, and went to work.

"We have a bad habit of getting really screwed up in the studio and bringing [Austin] along for the ride, so that didn't make the process any quicker. It was a lot of fun though. But in the fall of 2006 we pulled our shit together and went in all business to finish up the album, then sent it down to Todd Tobias in Ohio to be transferred to two-inch tape, mixed and mastered," Millett says. By the following year, their debut CD, The Last Clear Thought Before you Fall Backwards, was released.

"You make music, you travel, you play it to different people and they pay you," says Millett, summing up the experience of being an independent musician. If people like it, it's a way to make a living. Furthermore, he says, "if anything it's easier now because it's cheap to produce your own CDs and you can sell them yourself or sell them online, and you can add t-shirts to the mix."

It almost sounds too easy. But then again, as Millett says, "if the Buthole Surfers can get rich, there are no real barriers" -- regardless of where in Canada you're making your music.
- ypp.net

As a music fan in his mid-thirties, there's something comforting about seeing silverbacks jump on stage, turn up the amps and fist pump through huge chorus after huge chorus. It’s no secret that most of today’s musicians are fueled by apathy, irony and self loathing and it might be hard to believe, but this wasn’t always the case. Not too long ago people actually wanted to dance, sing along and leave a show sweat soaked and alive, instead of standing at the back nodding along more concerned with incoming texts.

Thankfully, there are a few acts happy to channel The Replacements and rely on big chords and catchy riffs instead of lo-fi subtleties, long bended steel notes or blips and bleeps. Obviously, Boston’s The Hold Steady is the first band that people think of, but if you keep driving North for about a day, you will find a local act you can hold in the same high regard. The Sorrys have the same mission; they want us to feel our heart thump along with each kick drum beat and crunching power chord and feel like we fit in.

I suppose the vocal similarities between Trevor Millet and Craig Finn will lead to more than a few comparisons, but unlike the critical darlings and fan proclaimed saviors of rock n’ roll, The Sorry’s don’t fixate on looking back to drunken nights, drugs and glory days that probably weren’t all that glory filled. Sure, they might not be able to match The Hold Steady hook for hook and probably won’t have young Canadians praising their name and screaming along word for word while hoisting pints in the air, but there is something more realistic, more mature about sad songs that make you feel good and are just as powerful to a 30-year old as they are to a 20-year old.

You never get the impression that The Sorrys are obsessed with the past, even if their preferred sounds and musical influences are entrenched in it. They are more than ok with growing up, they just never felt the need to stop loving electric guitars and big drums. The carefree joy of Achievement Races jump starts the record and you realize the Haligonian rockers simply kept playing music, kept drinking beer and kept on living. Instead of trying to save rock n’ roll, The Sorrys assumed it was doing ok on it's own and simply kept the good times rolling.

The shimmering guitar notes of Roses and heavy riffage of Articulate keep the record driving forward, but the band also shows the natural evolution a band needs on the Long Winters-ish Breath to Breeze. As fun as it is to let go and give into classic hooks like the band delivers on Poppy, a little bit of depth makes the record a more complete listen. Every night can't be filled with booze heavy nonsense, and not every crush is life or death any more, but The Sorrys show us that turning 30 isn't a death sentence and maybe, just maybe, your best days aren't behind you.
- Herohill

Since their debut The Last Clear Thought Before You Fall Backwards, The Sorrys have garnered a reputation for being east-coast Canada’s answer to The Hold Steady. Although subject to deep investigation and far from damning, this connection between the Brooklyn success-story and our Halifax-based quartet isn’t without its merits. Both acts revel in rock riffs of past decades (Hold Steady’s love of Springsteen back when the Boss let the E-Street band play, The Sorrys’ aura of early 90s indie-rock) and both outfits are reaching their creative peaks a solid age category older than the majority of trendy rockers.

While this comparison may haunt The Sorrys’ like a long, intimidating shadow, its message is transparently positive: The Sorrys are an awesome bar-band and one of Canada’s best kept secrets. Look no further than Neanderthal Cell Phone for exhibits A through J if you need further convincing, as these ten new tracks boast a confident mix of aggressive bar anthems and loitering, after-hour reflections. The opening couplet, ‘Achievement Races’ and ‘Roses’, best represents this range, as post-grunge distortion surrenders to bouncy guitar chords and Trevor Millett’s casual but earnest vocals before sliding into the latter’s sidewalk-scuffled love song. Splitting their focus between Pavement-style slacker-riffs (‘Poppy’) and mid-90s radio-rock (‘Articulate’), Neanderthal Cell Phone showcases where Millett, Richard Herbert (bass guitars), Jim Cameron (guitars) and Steve Baur (percussion) get their inspiration and what they’re able to craft with ample doses of guitar and energy.

As believable as this record works in the guise of an upbeat, crowd-friendly rock collection, some of The Sorrys’ most interesting tracks converge on their sophomore’s slightly experimental back-end. If ‘Vital Signs’ is the album’s best slow song, matching Millett’s curious yet memorable lyrics with warm violins, ‘Carbonated Carnations’ must be the most hard-edged with serrated electric guitars and grumbled, half-spoken vocals. The band’s widening scope nearly becomes bipolar on the peculiar closing track ‘Devils Won’t Wait’, which builds an awkward momentum on distortion loops and repeated phrases. It’s a bizarre song, not only in how it’s assembled but also in how its off-kilter melody creeps into the listener’s head.

How fitting then, that even in Neanderthal Cell Phone’s most head-turning instances, these songs remain catchy and addictive. Maybe that’s The Sorrys’ best comparative point with The Hold Steady so far; as assuredly as those Brooklyn rockers make thrilling songs about overdoses and murder, The Sorrys render every letdown or heartbreak its own cause for celebration. If that isn’t a talent worth booking in every venue across Canada this winter, I don’t know what is. - SCQ Reviews