The new album from Toronto, Ontario band Summer Of ’92.
Dodging musical classification since 2002!
Before The Storm is another album that missed out on the Best Of 2023 on a technicality. Released on the 22nd December after the cut off point for the end of year Best Album awards you can be sure this would have featured towards the top. Summer Of ’92 have been around for a pretty long time, In fact it was March 2004 the band, then a solo acoustic project with the ever present Jason Dwyer, released their debut Bullet. Jason had been playing these songs around campfires, basements and bars since 1992 so the roots of the band go even further back.
Since releases have been sporadic and have seen Summer Of ’92 develop into a full band though one with an ever revolving group of musicians over the years. Now at least the band seems to have settled and they have gone as far to play a few gigs around their home of Toronto in Canada so lets hope they carry on. Jason describes it as
“We’ve been working on this for the last couple of years, mainly remotely which has presented its challenges. It’s more stripped down than the last couple of releases and maybe a bit darker.”
Before The Storm is seven songs, all original compositions by band founder and guitarist / vocalist Jason Dwyer, and kicks off with the album’s title song and the sound of a storm arriving before acoustic guitar takes over and dark is right as Jason’s gruff vocals take us on a tour of his tortured heart. It may be dark but the lyrics really strike home. Joined my friends for ‘Made Of Glass’ it’s a slow song but thanks to Jason’s distinctive vocals it comes across as much faster than it is and if music can be hard or soft than this is hard whether it’s a ballad or not. ‘Hold On’ was the first single from the album to come out in October last year and it’s mix of Country tinged Folk and punky style vocals really impressed me and here the song is definitely one of the standouts. ‘Way Down Lonesome’ brings in lap steel guitar, banjo and ukulele for a real slow burner of a song.
‘Belfast ’99’ sees the band re tread their early Celtic days with a song celebrating the cease fire in the north of Ireland and the signing of the Good Friday Agreement. I won’t go into my opinions on that except to say its 25 years later and their are still foreign troops walking Irish streets. We’re heading towards the end and ‘The Soft Light’ is a beautifully dark ballad about love and loss. The album ends with ‘Saskatchewan (Redux)’ and I had to look up redux to see what it means and that is ‘brought back’ so on further investigation it seems the song is a freshly recorded instrumental version of the title track of their 2007 mini-album Saskatchewan. A beautiful way to wrap things up. The album was produced by Jason Dwyer, Daniel McLean, and Dan Sullivan, recorded by Daniel McLean at the local Lakeshore Sound and mixed and mastered by Dan Sullivan. The full list of musicians is available at the Bandcamp page below for the album. Summer of ’92’s roots lay in Celtic-Punk and while Before The Storm is far from Celtic-Punk it’s absolutely an album that readers ought to check out. Fans of bands like Social Distortion will definitely get it with both its lyrical content and Country tinged Punk-Folk.
(Stream / download Before The Storm via the Bandcamp app below)
Contact Summer Of ’92 linktr.ee/SummerOf92
LONDON CELTIC PUNKS WEB-ZINE 
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