I just checked out Montreal’s Plants & Animals this weekend at the Wolfe Island Music Festival and couldn’t have been more pleased. A bit Wolf Parade, a bit Apostle of Hustle, but undeniably their own, Plants & Animals is definitely becoming one of Canada’s indie bands to watch. They released their debut album on Secret City Records this February, which was announced in July as one of the contenders for Canada’s Polaris Music Prize.

Plants & Animals - Bye Bye Bye
Plants & Animals - Good Friend

The winner of Polaris will be announced on September 29. The 2008 shortlist is as follows:

• Basia Bulat, Oh, My Darling
• Black Mountain, In the Future
• Caribou, Andorra
• Kathleen Edwards, Asking for Flowers
• Holy Fuck, LP
• Plants & Animals, Parc Avenue
• Shad, The Old Prince
• Stars, In Our Bedroom After the War
• Two Hours Traffic, Little Jabs
• The Weakerthans, Reunion Tour

I’m rooting for Two Hours Traffic because they’re pretty much my favourite Canadian band right now, their album rules, and they’re the underdog. Any other favourites?

I’m home from school for a week and forgot my iPod, which means that today in the car I was forced to listen to modern rock radio. On a bad day this means “Higher” by Creed, on a good day “She Sells Sanctuary” by The Cult. Today I got lucky, because just as I’m about to turn it off, they played the newest single from Joel Plaskett.

According to no lesser authority than the Joel Plaskett Website, there is set to be a new Joel Plaskett Emergency (Website / Myspace) album released on April 17th entitled Ashtray Rock. The site (which is obviously not biased) describes the album as “soon to be classic.” The first single from the album is “Fashionable People.” The song is full of Plaskett’s classic songwriting (i.e. reminiscing about high school party fights, like a less macho version of “Too Drunk to Fuck”) and seems to be a return to harder rocking more upbeat numbers which made 2003’s Truthfully Truthfully such a good listen. After four solid solo albums, Joel has proved to be one of the most consistent Canadian rockers, and hopefully this album continues the trend.

He’s also had some success earlier this week at Canada’s East Coast Music Awards winning Single of the Year, DVD of the Year, and Songwriter of the Year. You can see photos and information about the award show at the Joel Plaskett Emergency blog. 

Unfortunately, I haven’t found anywhere to stream the new single, so here are a couple of links to videos of older songs: Come on Teacher from Truthfully Truthfully (2005) and Maybe We Should Just Go Home from Down at the Khyber (2001).