By Felix Mayer
The small but diverse Manitoban band Load brings years of work to fruition in their latest album It’s True. The album draws on the band’s multiple backgrounds to create a unique sound, which constantly evolves from track to track. When combined with the experience the band has gained over more than a decade of collaboration, the results can be powerful. Though Load is only comprised of three members, there is a lot of diversity within the band, leading to varied results in the music. Luce, a mother of three, provides vocals that adapt from sweet to somber alongside the constantly changing and equally sporadic rhythms and melodies provided by bass and guitar. On guitar, self-proclaimed vegan Metis Johnny Stewart accompanies the aggressive bass of Avi G who was recently ordained as an Orthodox Jewish rabbi.
While the album starts on a weak note with the creeping track “Slow Train,” it quickly turns the mood around with the melodic “Bruce Lee,” before returning to a dark and grungy sound with “Great Great Day.” The gentler sounds of “Hearts,” “Abigale Ann” and “Inside My Heart” yield haunting, yet soft tones, giving a more light-hearted feel before the album relapses into a more serious, downcast mood. “4 Of You” provides the already multidimensional album with a bit of jazz before it concludes with an almost electric feel, offering yet another sound to the album.
The group aims to create a unique sound which can’t be defined into a specific genre, but this inconsistency in the music proves as much a weakness as strength for the group, practically guaranteeing the appeal of some tracks, while denying it of others. Though the band offers several beautiful melodies and truly impressive, provocative tracks, the discrepant sound that it yields is hit and miss.