Armchair Cynics

A band is like a person - the more you get to know it, the deeper it becomes. When Armchair Cynics released the Killing the Romance EP in 2005, the Victoria-based four piece established itself as a sturdy modern rock outfit in a market already crowded with sturdy modern rock outfits. And the Cynics might have disappeared forever inside that too-often dreary throng if it hadn’t been for the nuances rattling around inside numbers like “Bang” and “Surprise Ending” - an almost covert pop sensibility behind the arrangements and atypical chord changes that lifted Killing the Romance out of its stubbornly earthbound genre. With its 2009 full-length Starting Today, Armchair Cynics is finally revealing how deep those nuances run, allowing that pop sensibility to bloom fully, and lifting the veil – at last – on a big, boisterous, expressive personality. Or, as guitarist-vocalist Kenn Coutu shrugs, “We didn’t feel like we got what we wanted with Killing the Romance. We were a little too hard rock on it, and it’s just not who we are.” “What we’ve done this time is closer to what we think of ourselves as a band,” bassist Aran Puritch adds. Perhaps... more...