SWOMP

Canadian singer-songwriter Laila Biali on her first Grammy nomination with 'Wintersongs'

Multi award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter, pianist and broadcaster Laila Biali has earned her first Grammy nomination, landing in one of the ceremony’s most closely watched categories.
Biali is nominated for Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album alongside Brandi Carlile, Elton John, Lady Gaga, Barbra Streisand, Jennifer Hudson and rising star Laufey, placing the Canadian artist in rarefied company and bringing new international attention to her latest work.
SWOMP caught up with Biali for an interview. 
The nomination recognizes Wintersongs, an album inspired by and written at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Biali has a long-standing relationship with the Banff Centre, and that connection is woven deeply into the record. Much of the album was written during a winter residency in the Rocky Mountains, where she worked from a quiet cabin surrounded by snow-covered peaks. The setting shaped both the mood and scope of the music, which moves with a cinematic sense of space, reflecting winter light, drifting snow and the stillness of Banff’s landscape.
What makes the nomination particularly notable is how it came about.
The album was initially submitted in the jazz category, but the Recording Academy moved it into Traditional Pop, a decision that immediately placed Biali alongside global icons and significantly effected the album’s visibility. The category itself has recently been highlighted by Billboard for its growing influence, adding further weight to the nomination.
While Biali is a well-established and respected artist in Canada, her profile in the United States has been comparatively modest. For an independent Canadian artist to receive Grammy recognition for a project so closely tied to a Canadian winter landscape stands out, especially in a category often dominated by major international stars. The response suggests that the themes and atmosphere of Wintersongs have resonated beyond borders, connecting with American Grammy voters through its craft and emotional clarity.
The recognition also arrives at a busy moment for Biali. She is set to return to Banff in mid-December to begin work on a new project, Dreamland: The Canadian Songbook Reimagined, which explores iconic Canadian material through a contemporary lens. She has also released a new holiday single, an extended version of “Joy to the World,” adding a timely seasonal chapter to an already landmark year.
With her first Grammy nomination now secured, Biali’s Wintersongs stands as both a personal milestone and a broader moment for Canadian music, demonstrating how a project grounded in place and season can find an audience on the world’s biggest stage.
Follow her at https://lailabiali.com/.
Photo credit: Chris Nicholls

HEALTH on their brand new album 'Conflict DLC' + 2026 U.S.-Canada tour

HEALTH have never been a band to sugarcoat the state of things, but their new album CONFLICT DLC—out today on Loma Vista Recordings—might be their most direct confrontation yet with the emotional fallout of living online, living overwhelmed, and living through a world that feels permanently tilted toward chaos.
The Los Angeles industrial trio have spent nearly two decades expanding, exploding, and mutating the boundaries of heavy music. With CONFLICT DLC, they deliver 12 tracks that feel like the next evolutionary jump in their ongoing descent: hyper-charged industrial metal, dense digital noise, bleakly funny lyricism, and a maximalist aesthetic that hits like a steel-toothed synthwave cyclone.
SWOMP caught up with bassist John Famiglietti for an interview to discuss the album.
Where 2023’s RAT WARS leaned into corrosive hooks and “cum metal” absurdism, CONFLICT DLC sharpens everything, emotionally, sonically, and thematically. Produced again by STINT, with mixing from Drew Fulk (WZRD BLD) and Lars Stalfors, the album pushes the band’s cinematic heaviness into an even more concentrated blast radius. It’s an album built for a fanbase the band affectionately describes as “a coalition of subcultures”, memelords, heavy-music obsessives, digital weirdos, and everyone drawn to the catharsis of beautiful noise.
Jake Duzsik’s lyrics roam familiar territory, depression, compulsion, anxiety, but now framed in the hyper-digital exhaustion of 2025’s doomscroll culture. “No, it’s not just your imagination. The future is shit and the phone you are reading this on is making it worse,” he deadpans in the album’s announcement, capturing the tone of CONFLICT DLC perfectly: devastating truths delivered with a smirk, wrapped inside earth-splitting industrial arrangements.
Despite the emotional weight, this is one of the band’s most purely enjoyable albums—a slate of “sad bangers for the end times,” designed as much for release as it is for reflection.
Before the album’s arrival, HEALTH dropped “ORDINARY LOSS,” their heaviest opener yet. With serrated riffs, suffocating textures, and Duzsik’s grim mantra - “The dead are blessed with no dreams”- the track announced CONFLICT DLC as a ferocious new chapter. It’s an intimidating start, but undeniably gripping.
HEALTH are currently in South America on Pierce the Veil’s massive I Can’t Hear You World Tour, with dates across Bogota, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and São Paulo. In the spring, they’ll return to North America with a run of mixed U.S. and Canadian stops.
Canadian dates include:
April 4 - Vancouver, BC - Vogue Theatre
April 14 - Toronto, ON - History
April 15 - Montreal, QC - MTelus
Full details and additional tour dates are available at youwillloveeachother.com.
Photo credit: Mynxii White

Lighthouse on anniversary edition of landmark 1971 album 'One Fine Morning'

Canadian rock legends Lighthouse are revisiting one of their most celebrated works with the release of One Fine Morning (Anniversary Edition), arriving Nov. 7 through Anthem Records.
The release marks the first time the platinum-selling album has been fully remixed, remastered and expanded.
It will be available on limited-edition three-colour-splatter vinyl, sun/moon vinyl, double CD and digital formats.
SWOMP caught up with founding member Paul Hoffert for an interview to discuss the release.
Originally released in 1971, One Fine Morning helped establish Lighthouse as one of Canada’s most innovative and influential bands, known for fusing rock, jazz and classical elements into a distinctive sound. The title track became a radio staple and remains one of the country’s most recognizable rock anthems.
“When we chat with our new and younger audiences at concerts and on social media, they ask for records and streaming of Lighthouse’s classic hits along with ‘extras’ that provide personal and historical perspective,” said Hoffert. “This anniversary edition provides both. In 1970, producer Jimmy Ienner and lead singer Bob McBride helped focus our music, lyrics and orchestral rock into a more broadcast-friendly format that attracted a much wider fan base. We hope listeners enjoy hearing these songs and demos as much as we loved making them.”
The anniversary edition includes a remixed and remastered version of the original album, as well as unreleased material such as “All God’s Children,” a previously unheard song from the 1970 sessions co-written by Larry Smith and Academy Award-winning composer Howard Shore. Other highlights include demo versions of “One Fine Morning” and “Sing, Sing, Sing” with drummer Skip Prokop on lead vocals, a CBC live performance of “World’s Biggest Rock & Roll Band,” and several early takes of songs that would later define the Lighthouse sound.
Each track captures the band’s creative momentum at a time when Lighthouse was redefining the scope of progressive rock.
In recognition of their lasting impact on Canadian music, Skip Prokop, Paul Hoffert, Ralph Cole and Bob McBride were inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2022. The following year, Lighthouse was added to Canada’s Walk of Fame.
More than 50 years after their breakthrough, the band continues to tour across the country, with upcoming shows scheduled in Guelph on Feb. 5, Pickering on Feb. 21 alongside the Five Man Electrical Band, and St. Catharines on April 1.
Formed in 1969 by Prokop and Hoffert, Lighthouse became known as a “rock orchestra” for its fusion of genres and large ensemble performances. The multi-JUNO Award-winning group earned international acclaim with hits including “One Fine Morning,” “Sunny Days,” “Pretty Lady,” and “Hats Off (To the Stranger).”
With One Fine Morning (Anniversary Edition), Lighthouse continues to celebrate its enduring legacy and the timeless energy that first brought its music to audiences more than five decades ago.
Follow the band at https://www.lighthouserockson.com/.

Kula Shaker's Crispian Mills on new album 'Wormslayer' due out in January

Kula Shaker, the psychedelic rock band that once stood apart from Britpop’s swagger with its mystical flair and sitar-laced guitar work, is preparing to release its eighth studio album, Wormslayer, on Jan. 30, 2026.
SWOMP caught up with vocalist and guitarist Crispian Mills to discuss the record.
The band, still made up of its original lineup of Mills, Alonza Bevan, Paul Winterhart and Jay Darlington, recently marked the announcement with a new single, 'Good Money'. The track blends ’60s psychedelia, soul and funk, while its video takes a decidedly modern turn.
“Our last video was all in camera, real stunts, real props and epic battle scenes which people assumed was all AI,” Mills said in a statement. “So we’ve taken a different approach with Good Money. The whole video is entirely AI generated by two monkeys, we gave them the song and the lyrics and this is what they came up with. It’s kind of mind blowing.”
Mills said the song is built on a “classic Faustian pact” and forms part of a larger psychedelic opera unfolding across the record. He described the narrative as one about “a boy in a small community, who grows wings and how the local people come to treat him. Some think he's a freak, some think he's a cherub, others cynically see him as an opportunity to make money… Is it a metaphor for the music business? I’d say it’s a metaphor for life.”
The upcoming album has already been previewed with 'Charge of the Light Brigade' and 'Broke as Folk', which showcase the band’s trademark harmonies and sweeping technicolour sound. Other tracks explore new territory, including pastoral folk on Dust, gothic crooning on Little Darling, and the cinematic, mantra-driven metal of the title track.
“I hope people enjoy the twists and turns that this new record takes you on,” Mills said. “We always loved those psychedelic records that had great songs, great production, great storytelling, and took you on a journey… Kula Shaker has a life of its own. We’re just passengers, watching it happen in real time.”
The band says Wormslayer captures its live energy more fully than past releases.
Visit https://kulashaker.co.uk/ for more details.

Thunder Queens on closing out VENUExVENUE 2025 in their hometown of London, Ontario

Thunder Queens, one of Canada’s most exciting young rock bands, headline a hometown all-ages show as part of VENUExVENUE 2025, joined by a powerhouse lineup of rising acts.
SWOMP caught up with Lola Hayman (drums, vocals), Violet Bruneel (guitar, vocals), and Clara Magnan (bass, vocals) for an interview to discuss the show and their career.
Set for Saturday, Nov. 8 at Lazer Quest (149 Carling St.), the bill includes Altered by Mom, Feura and Avro Project, a mix of alt-rock, punk and grunge energy that showcases London’s next wave.
"Thunder Queens represent where London’s scene is right now... loud, smart, and undeniable," said Darryl Hurs, founder of Indie Week and VENUExVENUE. "This bill is stacked with artists who are about to level up."
The London trio have honed a songwriting style that blends cinematic storytelling with raw melodic power. Their latest single, Birds On A Wire, channels pop-punk urgency into an anthem about breaking free from expectations.
"We wrote this song about feeling underestimated and boxed in and the rush that comes with breaking free,” the band said.
Formed after meeting under the pinball machines at Call The Office, Thunder Queens have since shared stages with The Beaches, Billy Talent, Metz, Sloan, and OMBIIGIZI, with festival stops at Pop Montreal, Up Here Festival, and Bitchfest.
Follow the band at https://www.thunderqueens.com/.
Photo credit: Bravo Foto

Vancouver's The Unfaithful Servants on sophomore album 'Fallen Angel'

Folk and Americana band The Unfaithful Servants released their long-awaited second album Fallen Angel on October 17, 2025.
Hailed as “Canada’s most exciting Newgrass band” by Seaside Music Festival, the Vancouver Island group has built a reputation for captivating live performances, rich storytelling, and masterful musicianship.
Their sound blends elements of bluegrass, traditional folk, and Americana into an energetic and infectious acoustic style that has earned them acclaim across British Columbia and beyond.
The band features mandolinist Jesse Cobb, a Grammy-nominated founding member of The Infamous Stringdusters who has shared stages with Béla Fleck and Lee Ann Womack, and singer-songwriter Dylan Stone, a modern troubadour known for performances alongside Keith Urban and Lou Reed.
They are joined by fiddle virtuoso Quin Etheridge-Pedden and bassist Mark Johnson.
SWOMP caught up with Stone for an interview.
The Servants’ 2019 debut, produced by Grammy winner Steve Smith, introduced their dynamic mix of bluegrass, folk, and rock, establishing them as innovators in Canada’s roots scene.
With Fallen Angel, the group continues to expand their sound and explore new creative territory while maintaining the high-energy performances that have earned them spots at Vancouver Island MusicFest, Salmon Arm Roots & Blues, and a Canadian Folk Music Award nomination.
More information about The Unfaithful Servants and their upcoming release can be found at unfaithfulservants.com.

New Jersey rockers Good Damage on 2025 momentum + their latest single 'Just Alive'

New Jersey-based alternative/pop-punk band Good Damage released their third single, 'Just Alive,' on October 24 — a soaring, emotionally charged track that cements the band’s knack for blending catchy hooks with heartfelt urgency.
SWOMP caught up with the group to talk about the new song and their steady climb in the East Coast alt scene.
The members say 'Just Alive' captures the tension between surviving and truly living — a theme that resonates with anyone trying to hold it together in chaotic times.
Formed in 2022, Good Damage have quickly built a reputation for their energetic live shows and dynamic sound that draws comparisons to Paramore, while still carving out their own lane through lush harmonies and anthemic choruses.
Their previous single 'Better Off Alone' earned praise from indie reviewers and enjoyed rotation on several college and independent radio stations.
So far in 2025, Good Damage have shared the stage with southern rock legend and Rock Hall of Fame member Artimus Pyle’s band Pyle Tribe and college radio favourites La Luz at the House of Independents. They’ve also appeared on podcasts including The Yo Show and Kids In The Pit, and performed a live interview on Maryland’s WKHS.
The band’s earliest releases — 2023’s 'Forget November' and 2025’s 'Better Off Alone' — were recorded at Sonic Boom Studio in Raritan, N.J., with producer Anthony Krizan. The debut was hailed by The Yo Show host Jeff Porini as "the perfect song," while 'Better Off Alone' continued to build their reputation as one of the most promising young acts in the region.
Good Damage have graced stages from The Stone Pony and The Williams Center in New Jersey to The Delancey in New York City, steadily growing a following that bridges nostalgia-driven pop-punk and modern alternative rock.
'Just Alive' is available now on Spotify and YouTube.
Follow the band on Instagram, here.

Great Lake Swimmers on ninth studio album 'Caught Light' + North American tour

Acclaimed indie folk band Great Lake Swimmers have released their much-anticipated ninth studio album, Caught Light, now available on all major platforms.
Alongside the full record, the Toronto-based group shared live footage of “For You To Come Around,” filmed at Odd Fellows Hall in St. Catharines, Ontario.
The band, fronted by Tony Dekker, will support the release with a lengthy tour beginning October 15, featuring stops across Canada and the United States. Supporting acts include Elliott Brood, Rita Visser, Justin Wells and Abe Partridge on select dates. Several shows are already sold out or nearing capacity.
SWOMP caught up with Dekker for an interview to discuss the album.
Dekker says “For You To Come Around” captures a sense of longing and emotional distance. “It’s about being stuck at the station, in a state between being and becoming,” he said. “It’s about the baggage we carry and the emotional lifting it requires for us to endure, and ultimately, it is about loneliness and longing, and the inability to truly know someone.”
Recorded over just three days in the Ganaraska Forest between Peterborough and Port Hope, Caught Light was produced by Darcy Yates of Bahamas and engineered by Jimmy Bowskill of Blue Rodeo. The album draws inspiration from early ’70s folk, pop and rock influences such as Gordon Lightfoot and Dory Previn. Dekker described the process as a renewed embrace of simplicity, saying the experience gave him “a newly found zeal for not being precious and being more direct.”
Reflecting on the album’s title, Dekker recalled growing up near a rural airstrip in Niagara Region where skydivers would sometimes land unexpectedly in nearby fields. “That was such a powerful image to me as a kid: What happens when you don’t land where you intended, when life blows you off course?” he said. “The phrase ‘caught light’ refers to an unexpected situation where you don't have as much as you thought you wanted or needed.”
The album follows several recent singles, including “Youth Not Wasted,” a reflective acoustic track inspired by the Oscar Wilde quote, “youth is wasted on the young.” Americana UK described the song as “immediately nostalgic; it is reminiscence and memory in musical form.”
Other highlights include “One More Dance Around The Sun,” currently the number one song on the CBC Music Top 20, and “Wrong Wrong Wrong,” which Dekker described as “about being on the edge, in deep despair.”
Over more than two decades, Great Lake Swimmers have built a reputation for their warm, resonant sound and intimate live performances. The band has twice been nominated for Juno Awards, shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, and hailed by the CBC as “a national treasure.”
In early 2026, Great Lake Swimmers will perform an official showcase at Folk Alliance International in New Orleans, followed by additional Canadian tour dates through the spring.
More information and tickets are available at greatlakeswimmers.com.
Photo credit: Robert Georgeff

Bif Naked on documentary screening & live performance coming to Toronto's Royal Theatre

Canadian music icon Bif Naked will bring her life story and unmistakable voice to The Royal Theatre on November 12 for a one-night-only event featuring the premiere screening of BIF NAKED: A Documentary, an intimate acoustic performance and a live Q&A.
The event begins at 7:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:30 p.m.) and promises a three-hour celebration of one of Canada’s most fearless and influential performers.
SWOMP caught up with Bif to discuss the doc.
Directed by Pollyanna Hardwicke-Brown, the feature-length documentary traces Bif Naked’s remarkable journey from her beginnings in India and upbringing in Canada to her rise through the underground punk scene of the late ’80s and early ’90s. Featuring rare archival footage, interviews and performance clips, the film explores her evolution as a poet, fighter and rock ’n’ roll trailblazer who has never shied away from telling her truth.
Following the screening, Bif will take the stage for a stripped-down acoustic set that highlights the raw emotion and honesty at the heart of her music. The evening will close with a candid audience Q&A, offering fans a chance to connect directly with the artist known for her wit, authenticity and resilience.
Appearing in the film are George Stroumboulopoulos, Doug Fury, Chiko Misomali and Peter Karroll, who each help paint a vivid portrait of Bif’s decades-long impact on Canadian music and culture.
Tickets are on sale now, with VIP passes priced at $50 plus tax and fees, and standard and accessible tickets at $35. Seating is limited for what organizers describe as an intimate and emotional evening celebrating one of the country’s most enduring cultural figures.
The event takes place at The Royal, 608 College Street, Toronto.
Get you tickets, here.

Finger Eleven vocalist Scott Anderson on their first new album in a decade, 'Last Night On Earth'

After more than 25 years together, Finger Eleven are hitting a vibrant new peak.
SWOMP spoke with lead singer Scott Anderson about the band’s long-awaited return and the making of their first studio album in a decade, Last Night On Earth, set for release November 7 through Better Noise Music.
Energized by the momentum of their 2024 North American tour, the JUNO Award-winning, multi-platinum rockers are entering a new era—one that bridges generations of fans.
Last year’s tour introduced Finger Eleven to a new audience while reigniting their connection with longtime followers, paving the way for a string of hits including “Adrenaline” and “Blue Sky Mystery” featuring Filter’s Richard Patrick.
Both tracks climbed the charts, with “Blue Sky Mystery” reaching the Top 10 on Billboard Canada’s Mainstream Rock chart.
The album’s title track, released recently with an accompanying video, nearly slipped through the cracks. During a final late-night studio session, drummer Steve Molella suggested recording an acoustic “campfire-style” version—and it clicked.
“On that track, Scott wrote some of my favourite lyrics,” Molella said. “It was the most natural the song has ever sounded.”
Anderson says “Last Night On Earth” reflects the emotional turbulence of relationships falling apart. “I think it could be placed squarely in a traditional relationship frame where you forget what you're even fighting about,” he said. “But you hate that feeling in the pit of your stomach when something’s not resolved and you don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna look like.”
Following a busy summer of festival appearances, the Burlington-born band will hit the road again this fall, first touring the U.S. with Alien Ant Farm and Brkn Love, before launching their biggest-ever Canadian tour with Headstones and The Tea Party beginning November 25 in Penticton, B.C.
Finger Eleven — Anderson, James Black, Rick Jackett, Sean Anderson, and Molella — remain one of Canada’s most successful rock exports.
Their career includes platinum records, chart-topping singles, and international acclaim for hits such as “Paralyzer.” The band reignited their creative spark in 2023 with a Greatest Hits collection that featured the radio smash “Together Right,” which spent five weeks at No. 1.
With Last Night On Earth, Finger Eleven are once again proving their staying power, blending raw emotion, melodic grit, and the seasoned chemistry that has defined them for more than two decades.
For tour dates and updates, visit fingereleven.com.
Photo credit: Myles Erfurth