New Music: Tunnel Vision by Castlefield
Ottawa’s upstart pop-punk band Castlefield recently released their second EP, Tunnel Vision, and it is everything a fan of the genre could ask for.
Tunnel Vision is full of catchy hooks, intricate guitar play layered with off-beat drumming and crisp vocals delivering emotional and self-reflective lyrics. It takes me back a decade to when pop-punk and emo styles had melded together to take over the mainstream, but don’t be fooled—Tunnel Vision isn’t just a throwback. The EP is a fresh blend of the past with some modern twists and turns a long the way.
Vocalist and guitarist Ryan Fitz describes the EP as “something that I wrote during a time of my life where a lot of things weren’t going right and I used my songwriting as way to cope with it. The way the songs turned out are definitely a product of the environment and time they were written in. As far as instrumentally, we just write the music we want to hear… we just write how we feel.”
Listeners will be hooked from the opening drumming and riffs on “Best Laid Plans” and will stay for the great up-tempo music and relatable lyrics to all those going through early adulthood, or looking back. The EP closes with a slower jam, “Escape,” which features the lyric “I’ve always been shit out of love”— a line that will surely be screamed at the top of fans lungs live and find itself on band merch soon (if not already).
The album was produced by Anton Delost (Bearings, Seaway, Cleopatrick) and mastered by John Naclerio (My Chemical Romance, Senses Fail, Matchbook Romance, Midtown, and Brand New).
“We went in with very different songs and he worked us hard to make them the way they are now,” said bassist Matt Spafford. “Anton is the man and I can’t imagine the EP being done by anyone else.”
Interestingly enough, the EP was released on Penultimate Records out of Australia. Spafford explains they got “an email from a random man in Australia, if I’m honest! Jamie from Penultimate sent us an email one day, having never heard Tunnel Vision, asking if we’d be interested in working with him to release our next EP.”
“He was a big fan from Australia and wanted to help out however he could. He loved the new EP and we knew he had to be a part of it. After some communication, we signed a contract and the rest is history! Jamie has been unbelievably helpful and it feels cool to share every milestone with someone 12 hours ahead of us, across the globe.”
Go sing along with Castlefield this Friday, November 30th, when they rock out the Tunnel Vision release show at The 27 Club in Ottawa. You can listen to Tunnel Vision below in preparation.