Befitting their name, ONTARIANS have a sound that could only be made by a group of guys raised on a steady diet of Neil Young, The Band, Blue Rodeo and the Tragically Hip. They demonstrated that on their critically acclaimed 2021 debut album, The Greatest Short Story Never Told, and they’ll be back Sept. 20 with the sequel, More How It Is, 10 new songs from the band’s co-founders Frank Deresti and Craig Smith.
The pair crafted the new material over the past couple of years in their usual manner, through writing sessions at their respective home bases in Sault Ste. Marie and Collingwood, as well as other excursions to northern areas of the province. The album was then laid down at Smith’s studio with the band’s drummer Chris Johns and keyboardist Jay Stiles. It was a lot of ground to cover, but the results on More How It Is speak for themselves; on top of Deresti and Smith’s rootsy melodicism there’s also a bit more of a Northern Gothic element to the new songs.
That’s certainly evident on the album’s first single “Start Over,” a slow-burning rocker reflecting on the need to put recent events in the past. Frank said, “Each song on the record tells its own story, but the album as a whole represents a period of time where the world seemed to offer more questions than answers, and preconceived assumptions were being challenged at every corner. Amidst the somewhat dystopian tone of some of the writing, there is a thread of curious optimism and light-heartedness that has become a calling card for us as a songwriting team.”
We’re thrilled to premiere the video for “Start Over,” as the song becomes available today on all digital platforms, as well as at Ontariansofficial.ca.
