Small Town Artillery are one of those bands that you can’t neatly box up.

 

Did Edward Sharpe turn up the distortion and start screaming?

 

Or maybe The Killers fell in love with Afrobeat?

 

Nothing comes close, and yet, it’s deeply familiar.

 

Soaring about the stage as an electric amoeba, every member a powerhouse of joy and energy, STA does what live music is supposed to do - MOVES YOU, UNITES YOU, EMPOWERS YOU. They are unapologetically dramatic, and yet, overflowing with gratitude and mirth. Good wizardry.

 

At the core of the unit stand brothers Tom & Derek van Deursen. Kaslo kids, migrated to the west coast of the Pacific North.

 

Career highlights span festival headlines (Edge Of The World, Convergence, Kaslo Jazz Holland Stage, Hornby Island, Cranfest) to extensive DIY tours, turning museums, streets, backyards, parks and forests into little temples of incendiary magic.

 

Their brand new record “I’m Glad You Stayed Here” - the first release in almost 6 years - shows the grit and maturity of a band that has seen some s#*t and turned it into gold. From the opening arena-ready pop-alt rocker “Birdshadow” to the breakneck powerfunk-turned-sludge “Tahoe”, the 9-song offering has already courted the attention of music blogs and buyers from the UK to Haida Gwaii.