For someone who named his band after a Jerzy Kosi?ski book and penned a song called “East of Eden”, inspired by the John Steinbeck novel of the same title, Dominique Fricot has a surprising admission. “I wouldn’t call myself a big reader,” the Painted Birds singer-guitarist-keyboardist says, reached in Toronto in the middle of a cross-Canada tour. “Basically, being in university for the last six years—I’m one of those 12- or 14-semester students, unfortunately—you get so sick of reading that I really only read on vacations. I do love literature, but I haven’t made it enough of a habit, in my opinion.”

Nevertheless, Fricot was sufficiently struck by Kosi?ski’s controversial 1965 novel The Painted Bird (initially marketed as a memoir) to borrow its title for his own project. The book tells the story of a young boy wandering through an unspecified country in Eastern or Central Europe during the Second World War. The boy is witness to a parade of harrowing atrocities perpetrated against both humans and animals. The young protagonist finds himself in the company of a professional bird catcher who is given to occasionally daubing one of his winged captives with several different colours of paint and then releasing it. When the painted bird tries to rejoin its kin, the flock takes it for an intruder and tears it apart.

Although The Painted Bird is now considered to be largely fictional, it is still a striking indictment of humankind’s cruellest instincts. Fricot says he relates to its themes and is determined to use his songs to probe similarly dark corners of human experience. “I’m no Freddie Mercury,” he states. “I don’t write music for fun. It’s actually something that I’ve had to do to get through some of the more difficult times in my life, or some of the struggles that I’ve gone through, and I think that’s what I really identified with.”

In other words, the Painted Birds’ debut album, So Much for the Rain, is not something you’d want to throw on at a frat party. That’s not to say there’s nothing enjoyable about the disc. Fricot’s plaintive vocals and knack for melody invite comparisons to Chris Martin and Adam Duritz. The band (which also includes bassist-guitarist Shawn Berke and guitarist Josh McNorton, along with drummer Shane Lynch, who joined after the record was finished) is adept at slow-burners, like the spare “When I Hear Your Name”, but really shines on rockers such as the churning “Tease” and the jagged “Lights Out”.

True to Fricot’s word, dark themes dominate the lyrics. “East of Eden”, for example, shows a little sympathy for the devil, in the person of Steinbeck’s character Cathy Ames, a murderous prostitute often considered an embodiment of abject evil but whom Fricot seems to suggest was merely a misunderstood woman forced by circumstance to make some hard choices. Other songs are harder to interpret, and the singer says he’d like to keep it that way. He hints at tragic events in his own life, but refuses to reveal the specifics behind songs like “Lullabye”, which includes the cri de coeur, “One thing that’s always haunted me/Uncertainty won’t let me grieve.” Fricot says his lyrics are too personal to explain—“I don’t want to exploit myself,” he insists—and besides, he’d rather let the listener fill in the missing details.

“I don’t want to tell somebody what a song’s about, because maybe the song meant something to them, and then I tell them what the song is about to me and it takes away what they’ve created out of it,” he says, “which I think is one of the most beautiful things about art: we all create our own realities or imaginations around what the art is.” For those so inclined, the Painted Birds offer plenty of fodder for 4-in-the-morning ruminations.

The Painted Birds play the Biltmore Cabaret on Monday (June 30).