Ottawa’s punk rock band Tucana will release their new single Spirit Bomb on April 22, a track shaped by Montreal’s icy sidewalks, $2 chow mein, and the kind of nights that end on a stranger’s couch or not at all. The song arrives with a music video and a run of shows, following their recent opening set for Pkew Pkew Pkew and inclusion in Exclaim’s 8 Emerging Canadian Artists You Need to Hear.
Produced by Dave Traina (The Damn Truth, Family Man) and mastered by Harry Hess (PUP), Spirit Bomb is an earworm, but a dizzying one. A scraped-knee freefall into memory, it’s packed with the kinds of details that root a song in real-life sweat and slush. “Spirit Bomb is an ode to drunken nights in Montreal—depanneur wine, $2 chow mein, and 3am limps across icy sidewalks with a dead phone and only maybe a couch to crash on,” the band writes.
Tucana formed around the ritual of weekend trips from Ottawa to Montreal, squeezed into a Mazda 3, chasing the kind of shows that left ears ringing for days. That collective tinnitus is half of the band’s identity. The other half is a kind of musical muscle memory—songs that recall not only what they heard, but what they felt in the pit, or watching from the back of the room with a beer in hand.
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They point to three gigs that shaped the sound and emotional grit of Spirit Bomb:
Solids / Fucked Up at Katacombs
After catching Fucked Up at Heavy MTL, we headed to the at the now-defunct Katacombs for they’re second set of the night. Round two of sweaty bear hugs from Damian Abraham didn’t disappoint, but it was the opener, Montreal’s Solids, that really hit home. The duo sounded fuller than any band we’ve ever seen. Fusing hardcore energy with the 90s alt-rock that made us pick up instruments in middle school.
Spite House at Foufounes Électriques
Spite House opened for Solids at the legendary Foufs. Their raw intensity and unique chord voicings pushed us in new directions. Every song felt like it came straight from the gut—pure energy and instinct.
Metz at Théâtre Fairmount
Metz were relentless. Their drummer carried the entire set with a force that never let up. The sonic textures, the chaotic build-ups, the drones between songs—it all added up to one of the loudest and most inspiring shows we’ve ever seen.
The new single from Tucana also comes with a curated playlist of Canadian acts that fed into the song’s DNA—bands that straddle raw power and emotional nuance.
Catch the band live this weekend:
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