Ruby Coast call Aurora, Ontario, home, but their horizons stretch further than the 401, and their appeal is broader than the 905. Take the choicest elements from Born Ruffians, Tokyo Police Club, and Islands and desert them on a desert island; the resulting new society would sound amazingly like Ruby Coast.

In fact, Tokyo Police Club front man Dave Monks produced the band’s debut EP, Projectable Collections.  It’s six tracks are sprinkled with indie pop pixie dust, and tempered by some finely honed playing.  There ain’t a stinker in the lot, and that should bode well for any future full length releases.

Ruby Coast are coming off a high playing Halifax’s Pop Explosion with islands and Sebastien Grainger, and have a few more dates lined up in Southern Ontario next week (the 7th at Sneaky Dee’s in Toronto, the 12th at Hamilton’s Casbah, and the 13th in Guelph).

MP3: Ruby Coast “Neighbourhood”
Video: Ruby Coast “Neighbourhood”

The Pains of Being Pure at Heart are a noisy little pop band with a lot of energy and exuberance.  I know Matt Skatterbrain is a HUGE fan, and if there’s anyone that knows their pop, it’s Matt.  There’s a Lush-like psychedelic swirl of sound spinning through “Everything With You”, the first taste of the band’s self-titled full length slotted for sometime in early 2009 (February 3rd to be exact).  It’s a pretty addictive little number, actually.  It reminds me a lot of my favourite 90s pre-Britpop UK bands, like The Boo Radleys, and to a somewhat lesser extent The House of Love.  In just two minutes and fifty-eight seconds, I’ve become totally psyched about an album that’s not going to see the light of day for another three months. Can’t say that about Bloc Party, now can we?

TPOBPAH set out to support The Wedding Present (what a perfect match!) across the UK in December, and I’m sure that soon enough we’ll hear of some dates on this side of the Atlantic as well.  To tide you over, search out their debut EP, available now at Insound.

MP3: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart “Everything With You”
MP3: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart “The Pains of Being Pure at Heart”
MP3: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart “Doing All the Things That Wouldn’t Make Your Parents Proud”
Myspace: The Pains of Being Pure at Heart

Speaking of Bloc Party, Intimacy got its physical release this week.  The North American version has a couple added tracks (along with latest single “Talons” and “Flux”, a single from eariler this year), while the UK/European version is said to also include access to a live film called Live and Imtimate.  “Your Visits Are Getting Shorter” follows the same tragectory as the rest of the album, although it clearly owes a huge debt to early electro-pop.  “Letter To My Son”  is the odd man out.  It sounds very much like a great lost Smiths song, and is worth the price of admission alone (seeing as how I’ve effectively bought this album twice).

Myspace: Bloc Party
Video: Bloc Party “Talons”

Speaking of contests (???) did you enter our super awesome Danks contest yesterday???

Somewhere in the last week or so I made a post whereby I mentioned that Prince Edward islanders Two Hours Traffic were embarking on n month-long national tour, bringing fellow Islanders The Danks along for the ride.  That post is gone now (and no, I’m not bitter), but lucky for me (and you) I still have Samples,  the very impressive debut EP from The Danks, to spin and enjoy.

The Danks are cut from the same cloth as Two Hours Traffic; they are purveyors of superb power pop, that has a charm and shy awkwardness that’s immediately endearing and memorable.  Their seven song sampler never misses a step or beat.  From the jaunty “I Got No Nothing” to the power chord crunching “Treaty Connector”, The Danks sound like your older cousin’s favourite bar band, seasoned from years of playing dive bars and late night slots;  they’ve paid their dues and are now ready to take on the world.

They’ve found a home on Collagen Rock Records (also home to Mardeen) and are preparing a full-length album for release at the end of March, 2009.  They’ll be rolling into a town near you soon, so check their Myspace page for dates and locations.

MP3: The Danks “Treaty Connector”
MP3: The Danks “I Mean, Come On”
Video: The Danks “Treaty Connector”
Myspace: The Danks

CONTEST DETAILS: I’m in a generous and giving mood today, seeing as how things here at our new online home are going so well, so here’s what I’m gonna do:  I’ll give you your very own copy of this here EP, along with a random assortment of other music-related goodies.  Here’s what you’re goinna do:  email me at contests AT quickbeforeitmelts DOT com with “LET ME SAMPLE SOME DANKS” in the subject line, and your mailing address in the body.  Contest closes Friday, October 31st, at 11:59 p.m.  Trick or treat!

Notice anything different about us?

Without getting into too many specifics and technical jibberjabber (which I  hardly understand myself), QBiM has got a new home, which is sort of it’s old home, but with a new coat of paint (and a few bugs to work out yet).  The do

main www.quickbeforeitmelts.com has been around for awhile, but the site you saw when you visited that URL was actually running on Blogger.  We’ve made the switch to WordPress, and none too soon.  It seems some of our posts over at Blogger were disappearing.  Hopefully things should be stable over here on WordPress.

You’ll notice that most of the look of the old QBiM has come over intact–if not exactly then a pretty close aproximation of it.  Over the next little while, I’ll start unpacking and settling in, making these new digs very much a home.  That means learning some new code, and figuring out some functionality.  So please feel free to let me know if anything isn’t working quite right, or you notice something that’s missing.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

So it’s time to get this housewarming party started!  Doctor Rosen Rosen has remixed Department Of Eagles’ “1997″ from their recent Daytrotter session, adding “adding some drums, strings, piano, synths, and muthafuk’n flugel horn”.  I don’t know who this Doctor Rosen Rosen is, but this is a pretty decent remix.

MP3: Department Of Eagles “1997 (Doctor Rosen Rosen Remix)”
Myspace: Doctor Rosen Rosen
Myspace: Department Of Eagles

There will be more coming, I promise, but it’s taken quite a bit to settle in this much this quickly, so come back later to see what I’ve done to the place.

Just want to let all my QBiM readers know that there are some changes afoot, and I want to make sure I’m not losing any of you in the process.

As of RIGHT NOW, QBiM will be accessible by visiting www.quickbeforeitmelts.com only. Some of you may still be going to our original Blogger URL http://qbim.blogspot.com, but this will be the last post on that site.

Consequently, anyone who’s reading this on the RSS Feed will also want to go to the new Quick Before It Melts RSS Feed and start subscribing to the feed there.

You may have noticed that some posts over the last few weeks have been disappearing, including a post I made on Friday about this very issue. The long and the short of it is that QBiM has come to the end of the road with Blogger, and it’s time for this site to fully move into its new digs. Up until now, www.quickbeforeitmelts.com was using redirect and mirroring to the Blogger site, but if all goes well and according to plan, then QBiM should be up and running there by teh time you read this post, presuming that Blogger isn’t going to try taking this post down, too.

Well, I guess that’s it, then. I’m open for business at the new site, so thanks to all loyal readers ready to make the jump with us, and hopefully a few more will find their way to our new home, too.