the spaces

The boys of Fredericton's favorite jam band Chillin Room are back with a new sound, a new name and a brand new attitude.

Enlarge Photo Matt McGuire, former Chillin Room vocalist, says the decision to reincarnate into The Spaces was the result of a mutual maturing of the band.

No longer university kids, they decided to pursue a more polished, professional sound.

"We have to continue on and change and improve as musicians," McGuire says. "It's hard to leave something so successful to try something new, but that's what life's all about."

Despite losing Chillin Room's percussionist, the band retains all the original members. The Spaces just released their first full-length, Walls Cave In, last month at a packed all-ages album release at Gallery Connexion. The festivities continue July 16, with a CD release party at The Capital with Stereo Airing.

McGuire admits leaving Chillin Room behind was a difficult decision, especially given its popularity. Having performed five times at Harvest Jazz and Blues and raking in album sales across the world, the funk/reggae rockers seemed unstoppable.

"The saying ?Why fix something when it isn't broken' was in the back of our mind," he says.

"We knew people would miss the Chillin Room. But if we're not happy with our music, then what's the point?"

The Spaces will be sharing the stage with fellow Fredericton alt rockers Stereo Airing.

The Spaces CD release party with Stereo Airing, July 16 at 11 p.m. The Capital Bar, 362 Queen St., Fredericton. - Here Magazine

The Spaces : Walls Cave In - Independent

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SUBMITTED PHOTOThe members of the Fredericton-based band The Spaces are, from left, Andy Cotter, Scott Sampson, Tayce McAvity and Matt McGuire. "Don't expect your ship to come in / If you never sent one to sea."

It's a clever mantra of seizing the moment, the bottom line of an album title track, and a neat reflection of a wonderful surprise decision by a beloved Fredericton band that most of us had thought had run their course.

Formed in 2001, Chillin' Room peaked in public attention when it won Best Band in Fredericton plaudits in Here magazine in 2006 and followed this the next year with its second album Melting Pot.

Two years later, the band dissolved, but the friendships remained.

Charter members Matt McGuire and Andy Cotter and long-time drummer Scotty Sampson joined forces a few months back with bassist Tayce McAvity, who cut his teeth as bassist in the Jon Soderman Band as a teenager in the late '90s.

Now dubbed The Spaces, they deliver a neat update of the Chillin' Room sound on the new release Walls Cave In. That means a move from the acoustic jam band category into more tight pop rock with a focus on the crisp delivery of well-crafted songs.

Gone, for the most part, are the adventuresome timings and tempo changes.

It looks good on them. McGuire takes lead-vocalist duties, and his love of falsetto and harmony remain.

He and Cotter share guitar licks, while McAvity and Sampson provide the solid bedrock.

Lyrically, the material reaches beyond the wide-eyed optimism that permeated virtually every Chillin' Room track to a blend of happy life reflections and more sombre snapshots.

Just as is the case with the melodies, the storylines of this album are also clearer and less elliptical in general.

The most immediately accessible stuff is the pure pop songcraft of songs such as Something To Save and The Waiting.

However, the gentler melodic songs, such as the album opening Attic Addict, and the more aggressive rockers such as Walls Cave In, Eulogy, The Fall and Color Me Gone flesh out a complete pop album.

There's one nod to the Chillin' Room days. Stays With Me could have been a Melting Pot outtake.

This is a great album available in two very different ways: a standard CD for people of this writer's retro ilk and a collectible flash drive, which is pre-loaded with the album in mp3 and wav file formats as well as lyrics and interactive menus.

Walls Cave In will be officially released Friday, July 16 at an all-ages album release hosted by Feelsgood.ca at The Capital, 362 Queen St.

Fredericton-based freelance writer Wilfred Langmaid has reviewed albums in The Daily Gleaner since 1981, and is a past judge for both the Junos and the East Coast Music Awards. His column appears each Saturday. - The Daily Gleaner

Sometimes hitting the reset button is a good thing.

Enlarge Photo Fredericton rockers The Spaces will perform at Gallery Connexion on Saturday at 7 p.m. in support of their debut album, Walls Cave In. It seems to be working out fine for Fredericton rock band The Spaces, who are slated to perform in support of their new album Walls Cave In at Gallery Connexion on Saturday evening.

The members of long-time local jam-band Chillin' Room decided more than a year ago that the project had run its course.

But since singer/guitarist Matt McGuire, guitarist Andy Cotter, bass player Tayce McAvity, and drummer Scott Sampson still enjoyed playing music together, they decided to form The Spaces and pursue a completely different sound.

That produced Walls Cave In - a twelve-song rock'n'roll blast that the band is releasing through the traditional CD format and also on a collectible flash-drive, pre-loaded with the album in mp3 and Wav-file formats, lyrics, and cool interactive menus.

McGuire said the group is really proud of their new album, which was recorded and co-produced by local sound wizard Brad Perry.

"We've had a lot of different experiences in the past and we kind of took a good look at things and said, 'This isn't really the direction that we want to be going in.'

"We knew that it would be a sacrifice to start all over again, but the beauty of that process was that we now have a product that's close to our hearts," he said.

"We can stand behind it. We don't need any gimmicks. We really enjoy playing the songs and we can recreate them on stage just as easily as we did in the studio."

Walls Cave In shows that the band is much more than a one-trick pony - range that is especially evident during guitar-driven rockers Eulogy, Facing Forward and The Fall, and on softer, more melodic pieces Attic Addict and Something To Save.

McGuire said the band decided to keep the new material tight and focused.

"This new project was based around keeping things simple and on making lyrically driven pop-rock," he said.

"We wanted it to be simple, with catchy melodies and good tones. We focused on going for that and I think the songs are true, are full of stories from the heart. They're not cliché and there are no hidden messages. They're focused on telling stories about the trials of life and the beauty of it all."

Keeping with the spirit of the project, the band tried to be innovative in another way - by making the album available to fans on a portable storage device.

McGuire said they wanted to give music fans another option.

"Where are my CDs? They're on a shelf and they've been there for years. All my music is on an mp3-player or on my computer. Where is music going these days?" he said.

"I started thinking, 'Is there any possible way we could release something different?' A flash-drive is cool because you can transport it easily in your pocket, you can dump the music on any computer and you can re-use the thing.

"It's not a piece of plastic that's going to sit somewhere and collect dust. It's an album and a device you can use. Having said that, I get that people want to have their CDs as well. So we'll have two different choices for them."

The band will hit the stage on Saturday at 7 p.m. - The Daily Gleaner