If blistering, melt-your-face rock and roll is your thing, please meet Daniel Romano and the Outfit. As anyone who attended The Outfit’s performance at Block Heater ’24 knows, Daniel and crew unleashed a glorious 55 minute set with no breaks. Catchy, manic, loud, and punchy, it sucked your breath away filling the vacuum with joyful bliss.

Romano, a Canadian musician/poet/visual artist treats genre boundaries like annoyances to be ignored. He spent his early years as a folk and country traditionalist. Thereafter, came a bewildering array of the various forms of rock via his 24 (give or take) solo releases, with a band and other collaborators. His collection of songs feels lived-in, like a coat from a thrift store that still smells faintly of cigarette smoke and perfume.

The Outfit operates with an exquisite energy transforming pencil sketches into brightly- coloured art. Carson McHone sings and furiously smacks a tambourine like she’s trying to mine gold from between the wood fibers. Tommy Major and Daniel’s brother Ian lay down a backbeat a mile wide. Whether tearing through a psychedelic garage-rock anthem or jagged, ’70s power-pop, The Outfit swerves fluidly through the detours. In a world of too much culture-branding, the Outfit doesn’t explain their aesthetic, they just commit to the noise.

- Jay Nelson