Heaven For Real Share New Single; Energy Bar LP Out September 16th On Mint Records

The Halifax Nova Scotia-born now Toronto-based project of twin brothers, Mark and J. Scott Grundy titled Heaven For Real is today returning with their new single, “Slow Clap” – which comes with a video directed by Nathaniel Wilson – alongside sharing news of their second album, Energy Bar which is set for release via Mint Records (Tough Age, Wares, Faith Healer) on September 16. The new music comes on the heels of a recent support slot with Dehd – prior to this, Heaven For Real has performed in Japan and North America opening for the likes of Japanese Breakfast, Nap Eyes, No Joy, Luna Li, Mac DeMarco, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and more.

Their sound is most simply described as art-rock, but more accurately described as “hyper college rock” by a friend of the band, unraveled with one tug of a thread to reveal an internal pool of psych, jazz, ambient, electronica and Britpop. “I could see us veering in a million different directions, ” Mark explains. “[But] we’re using guitar rock as something of a palette to draw from, dig into, a lane to drive in. This is where we’re at (for now).” 

Recorded with Jonas Bonetta (Evening Hymns) at Port William Sound and mixed by Montreal’s René Wilson (Faith Healer), Energy Bar is a document of the band ten years in, signposting something that’s simultaneously dreamlike and alive. “The record is an analysis and an ode to the broader feelings of ‘potentiality’ – what could be, what things will mean, where things are going; the sense of wondering, questioning, attempts at growth and self-analysis and acceptance,” says Mark.

On the opening track and first single, “Slow Clap”, Mark sings, “I won’t take the grit of confession way lightly”; musically, it draws on the sounds of The Feelies, Built to Spill and Violent Femmes, tracing tightly-knit guitar lines around scintillating melodies. “Just living takes time,” explains Mark, “accepting that things sometimes need to slip away, love in its many forms is revealed and again concealed, a waking true observation.”

The video for “Slow Clap” follows a lineage of Arts-&-Craft Horror Movies, but without the actual genre-story elements; like a Mumblecore-Musical with an otherworldly element, where emotions dictate the physical space, and to apply things to your body until you disappear is a kind of Body-Horror miracle, instead of something grotesque.

Heaven For Real is formed around the nucleus of the Grundy twins. Since 2012, the back-and-forth between Mark’s evocative lyric-driven songwriting and Scott’s musically expressive instincts has breathed a precious life into Heaven For Real. Completed by drummer Natan Doucet and synth player Cher Hann, the band soon became one of Halifax’s most exciting musical prospects, a position they solidified with 2016’s debut album Kill Your Memory and their recent EP, the fabulously titled Sweet Rose Green Winter Desk Top Tell This Side Autumn Of The Fighter Hot In A Cool Way.

You can pre-order Heaven For Real’s Energy Bar HERE