The Dears is a stark, dark, and promising rock bnad from the glacial recesses of Montreal. No Cities Left is an album of consistent brilliance and beauty consisting of qualities that constitute an epic. Fuck everything else out there right now; this is the best thing on the racks. Sorry you couldn't review this Kyle - you missed out. The Dears have been ravaging Canada's club scene like a pack of rabid wolverines for the last ten years. Led by the introverted Murray Lightburn, The Dears slowly began gaining recognition as one of Canada's break-out indie acts. On No Cities Left, Lightburn truly brings to life the notion that the end of a relationship is indeed like the end of the world. The hardcore emotional illustrations of love lost, if ever really there at all, are rendered in a way that goes for the jugular and avoid the maudlin.

The single "Lost in the Plot" brings me back to The Smiths' "There is a Light that Never Goes Out" with the brooding Lightburn offering up such pensive lines as, "leave me in the middle of the ocean/ I can walk the rest of the way", and "I promise not to cry anymore." Such melancholy lines leads one to wonder if Lightburn could very well be the black Morrissey. On "Who Are You, Defenders of the Universe," Lightburn meshes common song writing subjects (love and politics) into one big "blood-bath" of confrontation.

The melody of Radiohead's "Creep" comes to mind on "The Second Part," which tells the story of having "no smokes." Give this guy a smoke for Christ's sake. Chain-smoking is a depressed man's modus operandi. Without them he cannot be sad. "Expect the Worst, 'Cos She's a Tourist" is straight cello madness. When I stepped into this song there was the powerful rumbling of a lion stampede in my ears with the angels of death singing in the background to the accompaniment of a circus calliope. Something like Chicago's horn section before Peter Cetera started thinking about being a bitch.

Lightburn seems to have discovered some all new guitar chords and made "Pinned Together, Falling Apart" out of them. Some serious experimental feedback abrasiveness puts Fugazi in their place and tests the durability of the modern guitar amplifier. The shimmering brilliant horn quality of…wait I'll not even compare this style to someone else because such an insult to The Dears cannot be tolerated. They invented their own style. Indie rock never sounded so wonderfully sad.