Shoemaker Levee whip up a powerful exit strategy on their potent and propulsive new single Planning Our Escape — showcasing today on Tinnitist.
There are moments when life tells us it’s time to get up and get out — even if the departure we’re being nudged into is simply a withdrawal from our own outmoded patterns of thought and behaviour. That’s the personal exodus this Toronto alt-rock band describe on their latest cut. Like a spiritual leader pointing the way out of a wilderness of malaise, the group issue an impassioned call to leave the doldrums behind and head straight for something more edifying and enlightened. Something better:
“Some days you’re chasing stones
Dazed, amazed, resigned to walk alone
I’m waking it up, I’m waking it up
I’m planning to escape
Out past the ransacked minds
Shaken awake.”
“You reach a point in your life where you’re forced to face yourself and the choices you’ve made,” they say. “And you can either let them define you, or you can decide to put a concerted effort into shaping how you want to live the rest of your life.” For further specifics, they point to the lyric, “I can’t sleep at night / Because I read the words between the lines,” which they say is “a statement about realizing that a lot is going on under the surface of what we see and read daily.” In other words, you can’t get where you need to go without first lifting the veil that’s been covering your eyes.
But Planning Our Escape is no stuffy self-help exercise. Far from it, the song advances its motivational sentiments within a musical context that’s fully invigorating and captivating on its own terms. Singer-guitarist Kevin Rogers Cobus establishes a mood of introspection and reflection that’s soon blown into the stratosphere by the arrival of some massive guitar chords from him and lead axeman Dave Broadhead. As exhortations to free your mind to go, this one is irresistibly catchy and commercial — even with the incorporation of a bridge that relies on some unorthodox, almost jazz-like chord changes that initially threw some of the group’s own fans for a loop. But once they heard what those changes were resolving into, “Everything made sense,” the group relates happily. “And that was indeed what we were going for.”
Though it’s only now being released, Planning Our Escape was one of the first songs the band wrote when they returned seven years ago from hiatus, and with a slightly retooled lineup. (In addition to Cobus and Broadhead, the band includes bassist Matt Brown and drummer Dwayne Cardoso). First formed in 1998 in Newmarket, Shoemaker Levee went on a leave in 2004 that ended up lasting nearly 12 years due to everything from work and family commitments to more serious challenges like cancer and addiction.
One upside of that absence: They were able to stockpile about five albums of material, which they’re now sharing. It began with the well-received long-players Phase Of The Days and Another Round, and continues with the new Between The Lines, a 10-song opus that furthers the group’s reputation for anthemic, introspective rock rooted in everything from classical to progressive to alternative to folk. The influences on display represent some of the band’s collective favourites, including The Tragically Hip, Led Zeppelin, Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails and Iron Maiden. You can hear the latter in the interwoven guitar lines that close out Planning Our Escape, which symbolize “how our journeys are in part walked alone, in part together.”
The new album was previewed by first single Hinterlands in June. The track landed in the top 10 on radio as far afield as the U.K., Australia and Mexico. Planning Our Escape is already shaping up to have an even bigger impact. As the band continue gigging around the Toronto area and beyond, they’ve racked up impressive honours. Shoemaker Levee have won the Steam Whistle Indie Music Series, achieved second place at the Ticket to Tall Pines Festival contest (2023 and 2024) and headlined the 2023 Gussapolooza Music Festival.
Like their records, their live shows allow them to draw on their thick repertoire of originals both old and new — and, thanks to the versatility and collaborative spirit of the current lineup, something that’s a little bit of both. “Some of our songs are revitalized versions of songs that were written over 20 years ago, and the lyrics still fit what’s happening today,” they declare. Then again, who doesn’t need a good escape plan now and then?
Check out Planning Our Escape above, hear more from Shoemaker Levee below and join them on their website, Facebook and Instagram.
