Saskatoon’s Riversleem return on October 23 with “Nomenclature Skies“, a new single and visualizer ahead of their third EP. The four-piece play a mix of metallic hardcore, screamo, thrash and grind, and this song opens “A Third Release by Riversleem“, the last of three four-track 7-inch records they began planning during lockdown. The title also picks up a conversation we had with vocalist Kyle Zurevinski back in 2023 about the almost endless number of names for different kinds of hardcore.
The song is about searching for care and connection through pain, confusion and pessimism. Kyle also draws on the history of hardcore, the bands that came before Riversleem and the communities that formed around them.
“The nomenclature of it all stems from the idea that, on one hand, itโs almost comical how hardcore or โheavy musicโ has a million subgenres and subsects, but on the other hand it’s perfect because itโs resulted in so many large and small communities that, for the most part, all want the same thing, to take care of each other, making the nomenclature both irrelevant and so important, and I think Iโm endlessly fascinated by that.”
When we interviewed Riversleem in October 2023, the Saskatoon hardcore scene was still taking shape. They pointed us towards Adolyne, Macrodoser, Man Meat, Swayze and Alien to the Ignorant. The band’s second EP had just appeared through Zegema Beach Records, and the members were already living in different provinces. Three years later, Saskatoon has more all-ages shows, another wave of bands and a steady stream of Canadian acts coming through on tour.
Beefy Records, Crate Diving and Tooth and Nail Promotions are still active. Reject, Alien to the Ignorant and Macrodoser continue playing shows, and another group of bands has joined them. Drummer Kurt Wolfe points to dead ex girlfriends, blind commentary, Rex Infernus and bitterfly among the acts currently adding something to Saskatchewan’s underground.
“Things have kept up momentum in Saskatchewan, which has been very encouraging to see.”
The biggest improvement has been the growth of all-ages shows. Fairhaven Bowling, the Greenroom, RCAF Hall and Tucker’s Tees are all being used for gigs, giving organisers more options than they had just a few years ago. For a young hardcore band trying to get started, that’s a welcome change.
Saskatoon and Regina have maintained the close relationship they already had in 2023. Kurt hasn’t noticed some sudden new connection between the two cities, because bands and people were already moving between them. Touring traffic has remained healthy too, particularly for Canadian acts. Bigger shows come through occasionally, while Beefy Records and Tooth and Nail Promotions regularly help touring bands find a place on the local calendar.
Riversleem themselves haven’t been able to participate as much lately.
“Weโve admittedly been less involved in the excitement lately. Still, it’s amazing to see the prairie spirit blowing strong throughout Sask’s underground music scene, and weโre excited to jump back in as life allows.”
The band’s current living arrangements explain some of that absence. Guitarist Drew Fitzgerald and vocalist Kyle Zurevinski are still in Saskatchewan, bassist Connor Guillet lives in Victoria, British Columbia, and Kurt is in Toronto, Ontario.
Connor and Kurt both have family and friends in Saskatoon, so visits home still give the four of them opportunities to meet, rehearse and work on songs. Everyone would prefer to do it more often.
Kurt has no trouble continuing to call Riversleem a Saskatoon band. It’s where they formed in 2019, where they’re most connected to other musicians, and where the members still have important parts of their personal lives.
“Being a โSaskatoonโ band still feels like an appropriate label for a number of reasons. First, we’re most plugged into the Saskatoon scene. But even more importantly, we all love Saskatoon, and are very proud to be living and connected to such a great place.”
There’s some good news for rehearsals too. Kurt plans to move back to Saskatchewan in 2027.
“And Kurt will be moving back to Sask in 2027, so our Sask purity will jump up another 25%. Exciting times ahead!”
For the last two EPs, they’ve generally written songs over long periods, gradually put the parts together and waited for opportunities to record as much as possible in the same place. Kyle admits that his vocals can take an especially long time.
“I also historically take a lifetime to record vocals.”
That slow pace has worked surprisingly well with the format Riversleem chose after releasing their debut in 2021.
The three EPs were conceived as a connected series, each containing four songs and each assigned one of the primary colours of the RGB system. “A Debut Release by Riversleem” was green, “A Second Release by Riversleem” was red, and the new record completes the sequence in blue.
The unusually straightforward titles are part of that plan too. Kyle took inspiration from minimalist, abstract and conceptual artists who frequently named their works “Untitled”. He liked the idea of giving Riversleem’s records similarly plain names, with each successive release recording another period of the band’s activity.
The first EP established the approach. By the time they began writing the second, they had decided there would be three.
Kyle describes the releases as “a catalogue of music and work, but also a catalogue and record of us as people, collaborators, and sincere friends”.
That personal side has always been important to Riversleem, who spent much of their early existence dealing with the restrictions of COVID and figuring out how to keep a band going when so much activity had moved online.
RGB was a useful reference for that period. As the colour system used by digital screens, it connected to how Kyle was thinking about the band’s early years. Much of Riversleem’s planning, communication and initial activity happened during lockdown, when experiencing things through screens had become an ordinary part of daily life.
Each EP also exists physically. The debut eventually received a green vinyl pressing in 2022, the second came out on red vinyl in 2023, and the third will be released on blue-themed 7-inch packaging.
“This is all very inside baseball and nerdy,” Kyle admits when explaining the colour system and how it relates to the records.
“This is also why having the 7โ is so important to us. Itโs a physical document that is bringing the conceptually digital into a physical space.”
Their earlier songs move between the sharper, faster end of metallic hardcore and grind, shrieked screamo vocals and slower, heavier guitar sections. “Antispore”, the closing track on their second EP, gave them more room to work with a slower main guitar part written by Connor, who had originally learnt bass specifically to join Riversleem.
The new release returns to four short songs, opening with “Nomenclature Skies” before moving through “Dogfish” and “Material Memory” to the closing “Inward“. The second EP had also consisted of four tracks, with the extended “Antispore” taking up a substantial part of its running time. Across these records, the band have found room for longer arrangements alongside the quicker, more compact songs.
There’s quite a history behind some of the new music. “Material Memory” was nearly included on “A Second Release by Riversleem”, and the earliest ideas for the third EP date back to 2022.
By early 2024, Riversleem had worked out the basic structures of all four songs. Kurt recorded his drum parts during the summer, immediately before they headed out on their first-ever tour. The remaining recording was completed by spring 2025, followed by mastering from Brad Boatright at Audiosiege that summer. Artwork, packaging and the rest of the visual work were completed in 2026.
The full process therefore ran from 2022 to 2026, including the initial writing and final presentation. The actual recording sessions took place mainly during 2024 and 2025.
As on their previous releases, Drew handled engineering and mixing.
They’ve become comfortable recording themselves, even with the technical limitations that come from working outside a professional studio. Better-equipped facilities are available, of course, but the band prefer being responsible for the recording decisions and giving each detail as much attention as they want.
They also enjoy the process. Getting together to work through a recording gives four friends another reason to spend time in the same room, something they’ve had to organise carefully for the past several years.
Sometimes those sessions produce things nobody expected.
Take “Hammer“, from the second EP. During the breakdown, a peculiar metallic ringing can be heard between the guitar chords. The band eventually suspected it had come from sound waves bouncing off a lawnmower sitting in the garage where they were recording, with the reflections making their way back into the guitar microphone.
Initially, they wanted to clean it up.
“When we first heard that come through, our instinct was to strip the noise out of the recording, but after listening in context with the rest of the mix, we realized it added a chaotic “glue” to the breakdown, and was kept.”
The ringing stayed in the finished song. Drew likes the accidents that can happen when you’re recording with whatever equipment and space you have available.
“It’s those types of moments, happy little accidents, which keep recording ourselves worth it. Not to mention it’s just an additional way to have fun, be creative, and spend time together.”
Riversleem have always put plenty of time into the visual side of their releases as well. Their second EP featured a photograph of flowers taken by their friend Jacob Farrell, treated in red by Kyle to fit the colour scheme. The photograph itself had no particular symbolic meaning, although the band liked how the subject looked under that treatment.
For “A Third Release by Riversleem“, they approached another local artist, Aurora Wolfe, who also plays in Saskatoon band Dump Babes.
Kyle had been following her visual work and noticed she was running a nearby cyanotype workshop. The cyanotype process produces blue-toned photographic prints, making it a natural choice for the last part of the RGB series.
Aurora supplied physical prints, including photographs she had taken at Saskatchewan Landing Provincial Park. Kyle then worked those prints into the final cover and 7-inch packaging layouts.
“I used the physical prints that Aurora gave us to create the eventual layout for both the cover and 7″ packaging, and it all came out better than I ever could have imagined.”
The other contribution from outside the band came through a friendship that goes back several years.
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Riversleem played their 2024 tour kick-off show at Amigo’s Cantina in Saskatoon alongside respectfulchild. During the concert, respectfulchild performed a cover of Riversleem’s “Antispore”.
The band had already been discussing ways to bring additional instrumentation into their songs. After that show, they approached respectfulchild about recording strings for the ending of “Inward”.
The collaboration went ahead, and those additional strings appear on the finished recording.
Kyle hopes there will be more opportunities to work with artists outside the immediate hardcore circle. Saskatoon has musicians and visual artists working across different styles and disciplines, and Riversleem have always been interested in what those people are making.
“Saskatoon has an immense community of artists and creative folks from all mediums and disciplines. To get to work, or be mentioned, with any of these people is an honour, and we hope to collaborate with more community members in the future.”
Some of those local connections also explain where Riversleem choose to send money raised through their music.
The practice began with their debut EP during COVID, when many local organisations were having a difficult time. Proceeds from “A Debut Release by Riversleem” went to Prairie Harm Reduction, an organisation working on harm reduction and community health in Saskatchewan.
Their second EP supported Chokecherry Studios, a Saskatoon non-profit offering art programmes and mentorship to young and emerging artists. Riversleem had previously played fundraising shows for Chokecherry and decided to direct the initial digital proceeds from the record there too.
They’ve continued donating money from releases and local concerts to organisations working in the community.
For the third EP, 100% of the initial digital proceeds are allocated to the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre, which provides food and clothing to people who need assistance.
Kurt remembers how that approach developed during the pandemic.
“Our first EP came out in the thick of COVID, when so many local orgs were struggling, so the idea to donate proceeds from our releases and local shows solidified then.”
There’s no shortage of organisations in Saskatoon doing work that Riversleem would like to support. Choosing one for each release has been fairly straightforward.
“Spaces like the Saskatoon Food Bank & Learning Centre provide food and clothing for those who need it most, and for us itโs a no-brainer to support places that support community.”
Riversleem have also been fortunate to find a long-term supporter of their music outside Saskatchewan.
Dave Norman of Zegema Beach Records first came across the band after Drew sent their debut recording to his music blog. Dave listened without knowing much about them beforehand and liked the songs enough to release them through his cassette label Tomb Tree Tapes.
“A Debut Release by Riversleem” had originally appeared digitally in February 2021. Tomb Tree issued it on cassette that May, and Zegema Beach Records followed with a forest-green 7-inch pressing in June 2022.
When the second EP was nearly finished, Riversleem contacted Dave again. He agreed to release it, and “A Second Release by Riversleem” arrived on red 7-inch vinyl in September 2023.
The relationship has been going ever since. Kyle has even helped Dave with artwork layouts and packaging for other releases on his labels, and the band finally got to meet him in person a couple of summers ago.
“Dave Norman from Zegema Beach Records is truly our biggest supporter, and someone who we greatly admire personally and professionally.”
Being part of the label has introduced Riversleem to bands in other Canadian provinces and helped their records reach people far outside Saskatchewan. In 2023, they were already amazed by the thought of somebody in Germany owning one of their 7-inch records.
Kyle believes the label has made a considerable difference to their audience.
“Practically exponentially more people have listened to our releases thanks to ZBR and Dave, and it’s something we will be forever grateful for.”
Zegema Beach also connects Riversleem to other Saskatchewan bands. Kyle recommends Blue Youth, the Regina-based noise-rock and post-hardcore group whose album “Defeatist” came out through ZBR in April 2025. Their music is a useful reminder of how many different directions bands in the province take with hardcore and its neighbouring styles.
And there are some much stranger examples of how far the label’s catalogue reaches. Kyle brings up Febuary, the Las Vegas screamo band whose recordings appeared through Zegema Beach and who went on to play Coachella in 2026.
“ZBR has put out “Febuary” records, and they played Coachella, so wild haha”
For Riversleem, a small band that formed in Saskatoon at the end of 2019, that kind of reach is still surprising. The records are made in their own time, with Drew recording and mixing and the members fitting the work around living in separate cities. Dave has helped get those releases into the hands of people the band would probably never have reached on their own.
Now the three-EP plan is finally complete.
The four-song format has suited Riversleem while they’ve been living apart, but they don’t intend to stick to it forever. Work has already begun on their first full-length, although they haven’t set a release date.
Kyle is keeping quiet about the title for now. Given how carefully the previous three records were named and colour-coded, he suspects there may be some more overthinking about colour theory before the next one is finished.
With Kurt planning to return to Saskatchewan in 2027, the band should also have an easier time arranging rehearsals and recording sessions. They’ve already got new songs to work on.
“A Third Release by Riversleem” arrives November 6, 2026, through Zegema Beach Records on 7-inch vinyl and digital platforms. The single “Nomenclature Skies” and its visualizer arrive October 23. Follow the release via Riversleem’s Bandcamp, Spotify or Apple Music, and check Zegema Beach Records for vinyl. The band are also on Instagram and Facebook.
Photo credits: band profile photo by Jacob Farrell (@00jacobfarrell), edited by Riversleem; live photos 1-4 by Augur (@sicaria_de_duendes); group photo by Riversleem. Cover artwork by Aurora Wolfe, with layout by Kyle Zurevinski.
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