Evil Creek, winner of Music Group of the Year Award at this year’s Ottawa Awards, have blasted onto your rock radar with their new EP, Away from the Sun, with the indignant single, “Lovely,” characterizing the wistful longing, plaguing doubts, profound loneliness, and tender reminiscence we all experienced during the pandemic.
“As we all got a little older, more experienced, and perhaps a little, but not much, wiser, and as the music scene in Ottawa had less and less opportunities available for heavier music, we each found ourselves gravitating towards additional musical tastes that were accessible to more people – never losing our personal tastes for the harder-edged music but exploring other avenues as well. It’s pretty fun working in heavy rock riffs together with very different things; a little bit of country, maybe some bluegrass, some humor, and just good old hard-driving rock music. We don’t take it too seriously,” Evil Creek said.
Evil Creek’s “Lovely” chapter erupts with a twangy, acoustic guitar lick is “a fast-paced breath exhaling and inhaling, before a heartbeat of drums draws you in and pounds in your chest,” Evil Creek said about the opening of the song.
Turning the page, vocalist Mark Garrod launches into vexed lyrics.
Wake up with the shakes
Until I take another drink
Drop another pill to calm me
A shattered reflection and
I can relate
This is who I am
Annoyed with his life and reality, Garrod directs his anger toward a yearning to have a different life. To be a different person.
Because you’re so lovely
Because you’re so lovely
Garrod sustains each refrain like Dave Grohl’s unwavering rock euphonies.
“Drawing inspiration from a society struggling with self-loathing and addiction, ‘Lovely’ captures a dire need to want to be somebody else in a toxic and plastic world,” Evil Creek explained.
This desire to become someone else parallels the reality of social media presence. Looking at someone’s edited pictures evokes a sense of jealousy and hostility, but when you strip back the photoshop, you find the real person probably isn’t on vacation with a smile plastered on their face 100% of the time.
The heavy driver concludes with the forty-second build-up of an exasperated drum and piqued guitar pulse before culminating into Garrod’s final reflexive statement.
You’re like an angel flying
Through a wall of fire
Wake up crying, crying
I still hear your laughter
Don’t miss Evil Creek’s new EP, Away from the Sun, and accompanying single and music video, “Lovely,” are both out now.
