Spun: Night Flowers

By Jennifer Trieu

The increasingly difficult challenge for indie rock bands to separate themselves as respectable, creative and unique artists has been and continues to be a make-or-break factor for a band’s success. Unfortunately for Night Flowers, efforts to distinguish themselves from other Canadian indie rock bands are not particularly effective on their debut album.

While a combination of dancy-rock melodies, slightly aggressive distortion and intermittent harmonies litter the tracks throughout the Toronto-based band’s first EP, the distortions fail to complement or highlight the already-mediocre vocal harmonies- wafer-thin vocals are particularly noticeable on the latter portion of the last track, “Knock on Wood.” Though Night Flowers’ debut is not entirely characterized by poor compositions- there are a few nicely detailed instrumental and guitar arrangements on “Man of the People”and “Knock on Wood”- the remaining three tracks on the album leave listeners wanting more imaginative melodies and thoughtful lyrics from the band.

This EP exposes, magnifies and reminds us of the tricky challenges of inventing and re-inventing great music when creativity is increasingly difficult to uncover in the transient world of indie music. Despite Night Flowers’ not-so-stellar debut, the ever-changing face of indie music is particularly advantageous for this Toronto-based band: there is still potential for Night Flowers to broaden and expand their musical and artistic horizons in the future.