"Furious and delicate. These two words sum up the Canaries new full-length album "Poke The Machine." It's the kind of album you listen to once, and then again, and again, and every time you listen you pick up something new you didn't notice the first or second or third time. It's the kind of album that you want to show off to anyone because it's just that good. It's been on my mp3 player since I got it and I'm never taking it off because I listen to it all the time. It packs a certain amount of urgency and poetry into tightly wound songs placed one after another. The full length sounds as if someone opened up to some pages in Alec Gabins journal and put them into songs. It fits perfectly with the open world we find ourselves living in. The album is basically like walking away from a devastating experience and just opening your eyes for the first time, realizing you really don't know what's ahead. Just like how we have to wait and see what exactly lies ahead for the Canaries. All in all I highly recommend this album, if you want something new and exciting, pick it up as soon as you humanly can."
-Mike Shay, Kingpin! Zine (Flemington/Somerville, NJ)
"This is a very unique indie rock CD. Let's start with the layout, shall we? The CD case is a normal cardboard sleeve made out of recycled materials, but it's been entirely painted white. I'm not sure if the white was silk screened or painted, but then the album art is silk screened on top of that in black, and it all looks great as well as interesting.So now we come to the band and music. The individuals are all highly unlikely candidates to play in a band like The Canaries. Between the 4 of them, we have an upright jazz bass player on drums, a huge fan of early soul and motown on bass, an occasional rapper singing and playing guitar, and another guitar player whose other band is described in their bio as 'hick-punk.' Their diverse backgrounds most likely are a big part of what makes it so easy for them to play together in this band. It's as if Longwave and Franz Ferdinand started a side project. There are a lot of songs with more upbeat, pop and punk elements, but then there are a few downbeat, ambient songs.'Poke The Machine' is something you like from the beginning but there's something that you're not sure about at first. After a couple more songs you've become comfortable with them and start to really enjoy yourself. That was my experience, to say the least."
-Dana White, Corn'zine (Huntington, WV)
