From Mark Grundy of Heaven For Real: “All That Remains” is a song playing with the idea of ‘lasts’, and the breakdown between considering what 'could be' and the reminder of how everything ends–but in an optimistic way. I think a madcap handmade hacky sack-expanding universe is a fitting kind of liminal setting for it. Cotey and I have been trying to collaborate on a video for years too, so glad it finally happened! Thanks to them especially for shooting and making the galactic art and also Jon and all of the hackers and everyone who helped and lent us so many blankets.
Hell’s Logo’s Pink, Heaven for Real’s latest mini-album is out today and the release is available on cassette, CD, and digitally.
Facing limitations both in personnel and resources, the duo worked to develop a newly agile approach to their idiosyncratic rock arrangements–embracing a necessary kind of spontaneity, “the battery would drain really quick when running all of our recording gear, so we had to do pretty much everything in one take,” J. Scott remarks. Other familiar players make appearances too, with live H4R collaborators Jonathan Pappo (Ducks Ltd., No Frills) drumming on the spritely kickoff of “Oh No” and Laura Jeffery (Laughing, Fountain) lending her voice through the sunken pop crackles of “Blankets of White”. Mixed by fellow songwriter/producers Louie Short and Andrew McLeod (Sunnsetter, Zoon), the songs bridge a fiery confluence of styles with ease.
“There isn’t a note on the record without something burning in the background,” offers Mark; and with the titular correlation in mind, there is a Cerberus-headed energy serving as guardian and guide here. Taking the listener through devil-may-care melodies (“Platforms”) and rhythms full of promise and still ragged optimism (“Love That Moves Faster {Than Death}”); this release ignites yet another era for the project — one perfectly emblematized by the flaming bubblegum chaos collection of its album cover, illustrated by the artist Maddy Matthews.
Tracklist:
Hell’s Logo’s Pink Tour 2024:
June 14 - Montreal, QC - The Bog
June 17 - Ottawa, ON - Rainbow Bistro
June 20 - Calgary, AB - Ship & Anchor (Sled Island)
June 21 - Calgary, AB - Ship & Anchor (Mint Records Showcase, Sled Island)
June 28 - Victoria, BC - The Mint
June 29 - Vancouver, BC - Green Auto
July 25 - Toronto, ON - Baby G (Album Release Show)
Heaven For Real - All That Remains, music video:
Twin Canadian songwriters Mark and J. Scott Grundy traverse a withering limboscape while sporting wide-eyed grins. Lyrical themes of spiritual ambivalence (“All That Remains”), doomer delusions and devotions, acute grief (“Biting Down With The Fangs''), solipsism, and ephemeral love (''Wichita's”) float with the band’s signature sonic buoyancy atop a refreshingly dark sea of material.
After 2023 tours of North America and the UK and a breathless 2022 run of releases (the EP Sweet Rose Green Winter Desk Top Tell This Side Autumn Of The Fighter Hot In A Cool Way and sophomore LP, Energy Bar), they began self-recording and producing songs in a solar battery and wood stove-powered Toronto studio (Coach House Sound) amid winter 2023-24.
Mint Records is an independent record label founded in 1991, whose purpose was to release the music of up-and-coming bands across Turtle Island, with a specific focus on sharing and supporting the burgeoning pool of talent in the local music community on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh and Squamish peoples, colonially known as “Vancouver”. Co-founded in 1991 by CiTR 101.9 fM - UBC Radio alumni Randy Iwata and Bill Baker, over the past 30 years the label has released nearly 200 albums and has supported a diverse roster of talented artists and bands. The small and passionate team who currently run the label are community-minded, artist-friendly, and committed to making a more safe, equitable, just, accessible and sustainable music industry.