Think about the most confusing time in your life. Chances are it took place in your twenties. With responsibilities, expectations, and the necessary decisiveness expected of you in relationships, work, and life, it’s easy to get, you know, dizzy.

Yet, approaching a tour for their third and self-titled album, Dizzy’s vision for who they are as artists is 20/20.

“I think with our first two records we were so young. When we started Dizzy we were 19, 20,” says Katie Munshaw, lead singer, on a call. “We were playing shows in Toronto and didn’t know what we wanted to sound like.” 

One night amidst this identity turmoil, Dizzy experienced every artist’s dream. While playing a small show at The Drake Underground, they encountered a label rep who signed them immediately. Almost to their detriment, they were inches away from not making this life-changing gig.

“We were stuck in dead-stop traffic, to the point where we were all outside of the car—like, standing on the highway,” Munshaw reflects. 

Moving on to self-produce their second album, growing from infants to teenagers in the life cycle of their band, Munshaw describes this period as “our rebellious years, where we felt like we wanted to figure things out by ourselves. Like a teenage angst sort of thing. I think a lot of mistakes were made there, too. With this third record, we really wanted to be precise, knowing exactly what we wanted it to sound like.”

With a newfound confidence in collaboration with their producer David Pramik (who has also worked with the likes of pop titans Selena Gomez and Bebe Rexha), Dizzy has stepped into a new chapter of self-actualization for their third album, appropriately naming it after themselves as a result.

While Munshaw jokes about turning 25 years old this year and finally having her frontal lobe fully developed, it’s hard not to wonder: can you really be fully formed in thought, identity, and spirit by the mere age of 25? (Author’s note: I am also 25.) With coming-of-age themes intertwined throughout Dizzy with tracks like “Jaws” shouting, “Go on, love, surprise yourself, show em’ all how you’re well endowed / Destroy yourself, I don’t remember getting old,” reflections of one’s tumultuous teens and the desperate desire to understand “why?” is obvious.

Yet, if you listen in a little closer, a more comforting point emerges. Just like how Dizzy feels about their third album, the listener is reminded that as you get older, you can only get to know yourself better.

Still, for a record that is self-titled, and monumental in showcasing who Dizzy is as a band, the group decided to make the album art a Jane Doe (which is really a picture of Munshaw wearing a mask). In Dizzy’s press release, Munshaw articulates that she finds it strange how “musicians are often introverted people, yet one of the largest parts of our job is visually selling ourselves to an audience. To me, the mask not only represents a calloused version of myself, but it lends itself to an anonymity that I love. I like the idea of a female artist making the conscious decision to take her appearance out of the question for the audience.”

Munshaw now expands on this, saying she’s always thought of herself as a sensitive, shy person.

“I think the mask in so many ways is a statement, in a feminist way,” she adds. “It does lend itself to being another character I feel confident behind as a performer.”

Listen through Dizzy and you’ll find a touchpoint for experiences that are universal, but hardly talked about in the public eye. Opening “Birthmark” lyrics “God I swear I’m fine, but it’s when I go to bed” allude to the existential crises we all continue to feel. Pop banger “Open Up Wide” also offers a commentary on life not turning out the way you thought, playing to the memories of your parents holding out a spoonful of food for you to “open up wide,” ready to be fed by the optimism of your future, only to grow up where you “gotta pay [the] rent to rot away in [your] mom’s basement.” Dizzy concludes with “Are You Sick of Me Yet?” speaking intrusive thoughts out loud where we all feel like “just a rotten kid.” 

Having come full circle, recounting these experiences, roadblocks, and hurdles, Munshaw and her bandmates Charlie Spencer, Alexander Spencer, and Mackenzie Spencer (yes, they’re all brothers) are ready to show audiences exactly who they are on the road. 

Doubling down on this point, Munshaw concludes by affirming that “it’s the most competent we’ve ever been. I just feel so confident. The goal of this record was to make sure every decision was a precise one that we felt like we could stand behind.”

Stepping into the spotlight of the Biltmore Cabaret this November, Dizzy is all (or, you know, mostly) grown up and ready to meet you.

Dizzy

Where: Biltmore Cabaret

When: November 7

Tickets: $19.50