Sometimes, a great single is only usurped by having two great singles simultaneously, and that’s what New Brunswick/Ontario-based folk roots group Engage have done with its latest double A-side singles “Guitar Strings” and “Mirage.” The songs each stand on their own fantastic merit but when combined make for an enjoyable and alluring one-two punch.
Engage features singer, keyboardist and guitarist Carla Bonnell, singer/guitarist Rick Bartlett, drummer Greg Mansfield, and, for these two songs, guest bassist Peter Sisk (who played with Bartlett in the ’80s with the Howard Brook Band). The band has made two uniquely intriguing songs, each teeming with standout moments that would satiate the tastes of folk/roots/country listeners. And according to Engage both “Guitar Strings” and “Mirage” were created in far more peaceful circumstances than the 2023 album The Time Has Come, the Bronze winner of at the International Singer Songwriters Association Awards in Atlanta, Georgia. “The first album was recorded in part during the 2022 hurricane,” the band says. “This time, we have avoided driving into one to meet our deadline.”
“Guitar Strings,” written by Bonnell and produced by both Bonnell and Bartlett, lends itself more to a lighter, breezier arrangement complementing Bonnell’s voice. Lyrically, the slightly country-leaning gem addresses heartache and the need to strum your guitar sometimes and write a song about it. It’s a song Bonnell wrote in 2014 but “was revisited and recorded in New Brunswick with a whole new feel thanks to Rick’s guitar work on the lead.”
The new rendition came after Bonnell asked friends and fans which earlier song they’d love to see revisited, and “Guitar Strings” got the thumbs up. “The biggest influence in putting this on the album was my mother, Bonnell says. “It’s her favorite of the songs I have written.” As for the inspiration, Bonnell adds it originated from “a situation where I thought someone had my back and they walked away from me.”
Meanwhile “Mirage,” composed, written and produced by Bartlett and Bonnell, is an earthy, rootsy nugget featuring Bartlett and Bonnell swapping verses for a sweet-sounding result. Chugging along with great guitar works in the bridge from Bartlett, “Mirage” is an endearing, earnest piece of work whose seed of inspiration came from a riff Barlett had in his head for some time.
“One night, while we were hanging out, he mentioned again that he would like me to come up with the melody line and words,” Bonnell says of “Mirage.” “I always had huge anxiety about co-writing, so I had put off previous requests. This night I just said, ‘Well heck, okay!’ I wrote the lyrics and the melody line in five or ten minutes, and ‘Mirage’ was born.”
Using Bartlett’s guitar like a painter’s canvas, Bonnell was able to paint “Mirage” perfectly with her lyrics as the song was culled from finding “a sparkle of hope” in the “middle of darkness” or a trying period Bonnell experienced. Stylistically, the single’s music conjures a mix of the Old West but also some Middle Eastern accents sprinkled in. “We both felt that we leveled up our skills in ‘Mirage’ by combining our styles and the way we see our world,” Bonnell says.
Engage, seen as a “project” band in 2021 by Bartlett and Bonnell, formed in New Brunswick and features a newly added bass player Vernon Daigle alongside Mansfield. Bonnell, inducted in 2014 into the Minto Country Music Hall of Fame, has two solo albums to her credit including 2014’s The Liberator. She has also worked with producer J.P. Cormier. Meanwhile Bartlett played in many bands in and around his hometown of Williamsburg and saw his 2015 album with Colton Craft entitled Brighter Days released “under the production” of Billy Sherwood of prog-rock legends Yes.
Since forming Engage the group earned a bronze for The Time Has Come at the 2024 International Singer Songwriters Association awards in Atlanta. And both Bartlett and Bonnell earned top ten mentions in the 2023 World Song Writing Contest for their songs “So Long,” “This One,” “Raven’s Song” and “Dirty Water” off the 2023 effort.
Engage was named after Star Trek’s character Jean Luc Picard’s command, “Engage!” during many episodes. Now with two solid A-side singles in “Guitar Strings” and “Mirage,” the time has come for Engage to make it so when it comes to growing its international fan base with passionate, pristine songs.
