Tag: Wine Lips

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto’s Wine Lips Shares Punchy “If You Don’t Know”

Over the past decade, the Toronto-based psych punk outfit Wine Lips — currently Cam Hilborn (vocals, guitar), Aurora Evans (drums), Jordan Sosensky (guitar) and Charlie Weare (bass) — have quietly become one of their homeland’s most successful indie acts: They’ve amassed over 50 million Spotify streams, while receiving praise from Iggy Pop on BBC Radio and landing material on film, television and video games. Adding to a growing globally recognized profile, the Toronto-based quartet have relentlessly toured a sweat-soaked, high energy live show across North America, the European Union, the UK, Hong Kong and China while sharing stages with the likes of Frankie and the Witch Fingers and Death From Above 1979. Throughout their history, the Canadian punk rockers have carved their own lane, where fuzz pedals, frantic energy and razor-sharp songwriting coexist in a perfect balance.

Wine Lips’ fifth album, TV Dinner was released last Friday through Stomp Records. Drawing from an The Hives, Osees, Frankie and the Witch Fingers, Bad Nerves and the melodic punch of Nirvana at their most immediate, the new album may arguably be their most observant, strangely relatable and complete statement to date while still rooted in their signature blend of garage punk, blown-out psychedelia and fuzzy rock.

TV Dinner superficially features 13 adrenaline-fueled, loud, hook-driven rock songs. But if you deeper, the album offers a snapshot of what it feels like to live right now in our dystopian, late-stage capitalist hellscape: Everyone and their mom and cousin are selling shortcuts. Everyone is an expert. Your phone constantly pings with updates. Your rent and grocery bills rocket skyward while the apartments somehow get smaller. Dopamine arrives in short bursts through nicotine, sugar, social media feeds, alcohol, dreams of escaping the rat race and whatever else gets you through another day. Somewhere between the doomscroll, another trip to the doctor, another dead-end job, and another microwaved meal, Cam Hilborn found thirteen songs hiding in plain sight. The songs are written from the perspective from someone who’s neck deep int the shit, like everyone else, desperately trying to make sense of a mad, mad, mad world.

Recorded at London Ontario‘s The Sugar Shack with longtime collaborator Simon Larochette, the new album captures the band trusting instinct over perfection. Mistake sand happy accidents stayed. So did strange noises. They left the edges and roughness because they believe that’s where the life lives. The album also sees the band’s Aurora Evens taking up lead vocal duties on album track “Projector.”

The album’s latest single “If You Don’t Know” is a punchy and anthemic blend of garage punk, glam rock and pub rock, showcasing the band’s unerring knack for crafting catchy hooks paired with fuzzy power chord-driven. shout- along-with-an upraised-beer-in-hand choruses. Arguably the most direct, in-your-face ripper the band has released to date, the song features a narrator wrestling with something familiar to me — and to most of y’all — growing older. Yes, there’s the tacit realization that time races by, but it’s rooted in something far deeper — that age is supposed to come with some earned wisdom, some sort of forward progression and a shit ton of nostalgia. But what if there isn’t much wisdom and no real forward progression? Is the dream of being a rock god childish? Who the fuck really knows?

The accompanying video follows a man-child living out his fantasy of being a superhero in a very real world, including his seemingly real super powers, which help him save lives and do good.

The band are currently in the middle of a rather extensive European tour. They’ll tour across North America to close out 2026 and their North American tour includes a December 4, 2026 stop at Warsaw. Check out the tour dates below.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Wine Lips Share Breakneck Ripper “Stimulation”

Toronto-based outfit Wine Lips started back in 2015 as a part-time project between its founding members Cam Hilborn (vocals, guitar) and Aurora Evans (drums). But with the release of 2017’s self-titled debut, the band quickly amassed international attention, which resulted in tours across North America, followed by an unexpected tour of Hong Kong and China in 2018.

2019’s sophomore album Stressor was released to critical praise. Multiple album tracks charted on North American and European radio, with several being featured in broadcast and Netflix series. Building upon a growing profile, the Canadian outfit embarked on some rather relentless touring.

Much like everyone else, the COVID-19 pandemic threw a monkey wrench into the band’s plans and aspirations. The Canadian band used the enforced downtime to fully dedicate themselves to crating and writing their third album 2021’s Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party, which was released to widespread critical praise across 35 countries. The album has amassed over 20 million streams on Spotify — and the vinyl release is currently in its seventh pressing with nine different color variants. The album’s lead track “Eyes” was licensed to a bevy of films, series and video games, including ABC’s The Rookie, Hockey Night in Canada (I guess stereotypes are true) Population 11 and a lengthy list of others. Much more relentless touring to support the album ensued, and the venues were the largest they ever played — and mostly sold-out.

The Toronto-based outfit’s latest album Super Mega Ultra was recorded by Simon Larochette at Ontario-based studio, The Sugar Shack. Super Mega Ultra is the band’s most ambitious album to date, and it sees the band exploring new thematic territory while firmly cementing a sound and approach that meshes psych rock, garage rock and punk rock.

“It’s tough writing a new record when you’re always on tour,” Wine Lips’ Cam Hilborn says in press notes. “The previous album seemed to be doing really well and at times I felt like I was hitting a wall creatively. Long story short, I think this album turned out great. Simon always brings a good vibe at the Sugar Shack and we were able to try some new ideas and capture the energy without straying too far from our roots. Excited to see where these songs take us in the future.” 

Super Mega Ultra‘s latest single is a breakneck ripper anchored around scorching riffage, enormous mosh pit friendly hooks and choruses paired with punchily delivered vocals. Play loud, headbang with your friends — or better yet, open up that pit, y’all!

“I started writing ‘Stimulation’ during our break in 2020,” the band’s Cam Hilborn explains..”I might have put it on the shelf for a bit but one day the chorus just poured out of me and the rest of the song started to make more sense and came more naturally. It was the first song I demoed for the new record and it kind of became the benchmark.”

Direted by Ciarán Downes, the accompanying video for “Stimulation” starts with the band desperately seeking out a tambourine player. The first few tambourine players just don’t seem to work out for the band. They initially dismiss the third one they meet, but when he turns into a mix of The Incredible Hulk and Firestarter, inspired by the rejection and mockery of his closest ones, the band relents, partially out of fear — and partially because that fire thing is pretty fucking cool.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Toronto Garage Psych Outfit Wine Lips Releases a Furious Ripper

Started as a part-time project between founding members Cam Hilborn (vocals, guitar) and Aurora Evans (drums), the rapidly rising Toronto-based, garage psych rock outfit Wine Lips — Hilborn and Evans, along with Jordan Sosensky (guitar) and Charlie Weare (bass) — hit the stage together for the first time in late 2015. The band began playing shows in and around Toronto, eventually stretching out organically to the surrounding towns and cities, then into Québec

By mid 2017, it was clear that the band members were ready to make a full-time commitment. That year, they released their self-titled full-length debut through Fried Records, which they supported with a five province tour with a stops in the country’s Maritime Region — Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. A chance meeting resulted in an April 2018 tour of Hong Kong and China, where they were received by enthusiastic audiences.

Building upon a rapidly growing profile, the Toronto-based garage psych outfit released their sophomore album, 2019’s Stressor, which they supported with relentless touring across North America until the pandemic struck. But the band was able to amass an ardent following — and some of their material has been featured prominently on television and Netflix.

Much like countless artists across the world, the members of the band spent the bulk of last year, holed up at London, Ontario-based Sugar Shack Studios, where they wrote and recorded their Simon Larochette-produced third album Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party. “The record is crazy! We really spent a lot of time getting the songs to sound exactly the way we wanted,” Cam Hilborn says in press notes. ” I think this is the best stuff we’ve recorded and I’m super stoked with the end result!” 

Slated for a Fall release through Montreal-based Stomp Records, Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party is reportedly a collection of psych rock bangers influenced and informed by the likes of The Hives, Bad Nerves, Dead Kennedys, Thee Oh Sees, Idles, Ty Segall, Buzzcocks and Parquet Courts.

Clocking in at 90 seconds, Mushroom Death Sex Bummer Party‘s first single “Eyes” is a sweat and beer fueled mosh pit ripper centered around scuzzy power chords, frenetic drumming, rousingly anthemic hooks and Hilborn’s shouts and yelps. Play this one at ear splitting volumes and rock out. You’ll thank me for it.

“Eyes is a song about feeling burnt out creatively, mentally and physically. Something so many of us can relate to, even more so over the past year and a half,” Wine Lips’ Hilborn explains in press notes. “It sheds light on situations where you find yourself powering through the days with different coping methods brought on by late nights, alcohol and promiscuity, and seeing how far you can push the limits of your body before you find yourself defeated and broken down.” 

Directed and filmed by Sammy J. Lewis, the recently released video begins with a woman smoking a cigarette in a seedy, garbage-strewn Toronto alley. The cigarette smoking woman sees a slightly opened garbage bag with a glowing light coming out of it. Curious, the woman opens the bag and dives into a frenzied live performance of the song.

“Sammy had the idea of making it look like the band was playing inside a garbage bag, so we did a classic performance video but tried to make it a little more interesting with crazy fast paced cuts and some added green screen fun,” Wine Lips’ Hilborn says of the video. “It was super fun, super sweaty and we felt like trash by the end of the day.”