Imagine if Lana Del Rey was from the seventies and mixed more blues and pop into her music and you’d get the latest single from indie rock band Carmanah, “Bang Bang.”
It has a country swagger in its storytelling abilities with Laura Mina Mitic’s soaring vocals floating over every note. I love the layers to this song, especially the dramatic violins that get added in toward the end of the song, creating an amazing climax to the plot. It’s a mystifying track that takes its listeners on a cinematic journey through this relationship with every part of the song – both instruments and vocals – acting as a tour guide or a director. It modernizes a vintage sound and delivers an entertaining story along the way, an impressive feat for a single.
Carmanah is a five person band consisting of Mitic (vocalist), Pat Ferguson (vocalist and guitarist), Mike Baker (keyboard), Jamil Deners (bassist), Graham Keehn (drummer), and Lo Waight (backup vocalist). Beyond being a band, they are big environmentalists as they are ambassadors for The Jellyfish Project and tour in a bus fueled by vegetable oil. In terms of touring, they have performed at multiple festivals including Edmonton Folk Festival and Hillside Festival, and toured around Canada and America as an opening act for Ziggy Marley and KD Lang. Their music has been featured on the soundtracks to TV shows such as Heartland and Lost Girl. They released their debut album, Speak in Rhythms, in 2018, and will come out with their next album, Iris, this year. “Bang Bang” is the fifth single from the new album.
Written by Tatum Jenkins