"The majority of our album is tortured, yeah. I think that's fair to say."
Nick Vallee keeps it real while describing his band, Folly and the Hunter's upcoming album Tragic Care. The new LP builds upon its sophomore effort Residents' indie-folk roots. Now signed to Outside Music (Jill Barber, Sloan, The Besnard Lakes), get stoked for a more cohesive sound "leaning more toward the indie than the folk," says Vallee.
Tragic Care is a concept album about a personal collapse after a break-up. But more than that, it's about what emerges from the split. "Tragic Care is basically describing the sentiment of caring about someone you shouldn't," says Vallee.
Described as a mixture between Sufjan Stevens, The National and Bon Iver, Vallee's melodic-meets-melancholic vocals weave narratives of break ups, old friends and growing up.
Instrumentally more akin to bands like Freelance Whales or The Head and the Heart, Folly and the Hunter perfect towering crescendos and layered instrumentals in the upcoming record, dropping April 2013.
But Vallee's hesitant to embrace the comparisons---despite finding them pretty flattering.
"When I'm making the music, there's not a band I'm trying to recreate," he says. "I try not to think about other musicians while I'm doing my own thing."
Vallee says the three-to-seven-piece band formed organically in Montreal: a mixture of mutual friends and failed musical efforts eventually brought the band's three writers together. They're almost full-time musicians.
The band's boomeranging back to the east coast after playing Halifax Pop Explosion last October. Check them out at The Bus Stop Theatre on January 24 as part of In the Dead of Winter.
Folly and the Hunter w/Marine Dreams, The Weather Station, Thursday, January 24, 8:30pm, The Bus Stop Theatre, 2203 Gottingen Street, $15/$20
