Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood once described the most important quality of Canadian culture: grim survival. Our physical and social environment is raw and difficult. That rawness is our muse. We craft our songs around pain, loss, death and survival. Emotions are poured into melodies and our frustrations are pounded into rhythms. Guitar patterns mark the stars in the sky, and the bass forms the dirt that kicks up into our faces. In a short time, the band has built a raw, unique sound that warms as much as it saddens, and tells of the stories that lie within us, as they once laid within our ancestors.