Alberta punks Fist City share new wave anthem "Hey Little Sister" [Premiere]

13 May 2015, 12:45 | Written by Andrew Hannah

(Tracks)

(Fist City)

Canada's Southern Alberta punks Fist City are spending no time resting on their laurels following their brilliant album from last year, It's 1983, Grow Up! Almost exactly a year on from that debut UK release, the band led by the terrific Kier Griffiths will unleash album number two, Everthing Is A Mess, next month via Transgressive.

Recorded with former The Men member Ben Greenberg at Steve Albini's Electrical Audio, it's immediately a bigger and bolder Fist City that we can hear second time around, and no more starkly than on "Hey Little Sister". A song that gives the album its title ("Hey little sister / everything is a mess") it's a typically honest and no-nonsense approach from the quartet (featuring Kier's twin sister Brittany on bass, perhaps the little sister we hear being sung about) who have never been afraid of letting rip on the places they have to call home. To all intents and purposes this is a dirge of the highest order powered by Ryan Grieve's pummelling drums and Evan Van Reekum's guitar which is equal parts Lee Ranaldo grit and Dunedin Sound chime, and it turns the punk band of that first album into an outfit more new wave-y but with the uncompromising attitiude intact, and that's in no small part to Kier Griffith's baleful yet urgent vocals.

These outcasts take on bigots, killers and Toronto's former crazy mayor Rob Ford (the band previously defended another more local mayor, a victim of a smear campaign, on It's 1983, Grow Up!) on Everything Is A Mess and before the album is released you can catch them on a brief UK tour which takes in The Great Escape and Liverpool Sound City festivals.

Listen to "Hey Little Sister" below, and then check out the album's tracklist and the band's upcoming live dates.

Tracklist:

1. Intro
2. Fuck Cops
3. Let's Rip
4. Hey Little Sister
5. Bad Trip
6. Interlude I
7. Shotgun
8. Surf's Up
9. Interlude II
10. Interlude III
11. Rats
12. The Smell
13. End of the Good Times
14. Losers Never Die
15. Interlude IV
16. The Mess
17. Interlude V

May

16 - Brighton - The Great Escape
18 - London - Alberta Showcase at The Islington
22 - Liverpool - Liverpool Sound City Festival
25 - Leeds - Gold Sounds Festival