Sloan

The Toronto-via-Halifax foursome Sloan have evolved from a grunge-pop sensation to one of Canada’s most reliable rock acts. Formed in 1991 by Chris Murphy, Patrick Pentland, Jay Ferguson and Andrew Scott, Sloan self-released their debut EP, Peppermint, in 1992. Peppermint included an early version of the fuzzed-out crush story “Underwhelmed”, which was rerecorded for Sloan’s first full-length, Smeared, and which would go on to become a defining track of ’90s Canadian alt-rock. In 1994 the band released Twice Removed, which abandoned the feedback-laden grunge trappings of its predecessor and leaned more heavily into power pop; although it was critically beloved, Sloan left the major-label world soon after and nearly disbanded. They came back in smashing fashion two years later with One Chord to Another, which showcased the quartet’s songwriting chops and tight musicianship and went on to win Best Alternative Album at the 1997 Juno Awards. Navy Blues, which came out in 1998, boasted muscular production and included the AC/DC-styled rave-up “Money City Maniacs”, which hit the Top 10 on the Canadian singles chart. Sloan have spent the 21st century regularly releasing albums full of witty, catchy rock that plays with the album format and Sloan’s four-songwriter construction: 2006’s Never Hear the End of It is a 30-song suite that stretched the time limitations of CDs to their limit, while 2014’s double album Commonwealth is effectively a collection of four solo EPs, one by each band member.