Days Gone By (Independent)

If you have to choose only one local act named after a small B.C. town you’ll most likely never visit, make it Minto. With all due respect to the guys in that other (admittedly way more popular) band, Minto is just more interesting. As the group’s first full-length, Lay It on Me, proved back in 2011, Minto has always had one foot in rough-around-the-edges country while its other foot was kicking around garage-y indie rock. Neither of those things has really fallen by the wayside, but this new six-song EP suggests that singer Ryan Hoben and pals are loosening their collective toehold.

Thus we get the opening track, “Get So Cold”, which boasts a wickedly off-kilter beat, a hook-driven chorus, and a Crazy-Horse-on-crystal-meth guitar solo. Equally awesome is “Ratted Out”, a teenage-kicks pop-punker that clocks in at under two minutes. And for all you old-school types, there’s still plenty of twang to be found in “I Regret” and the rousing folk-fest closer, “Come to Me”.

It’s all great, but it’s not likely to hit pop radio in this lifetime. So Hedley really has nothing to worry about.