Montreal outfit Fleece will release their third album “Stunning and Atrocious” on Aug. 20. The record sees the band fully step into their new lineup, consisting of founding members Matt Rogers (vocals) and Ethan Soil (drums), as well as Megan Ennenberg (bass) and Jameson Daniel (guitar).

The album features the popular singles “Do U Mind? (Leave The Light On),” “Love Song For The Haters,” and “Upside Down.” It also includes “Bodies Lie” — a track that sees Ennenberg as an explosive and powerful force within the band as both a guitarist and writer. 

Stunning and Atrocious

Fleece delivers on the promise of a long-awaited third album in more ways than one. The newly reformed “queer quartet” features strong messages of power, heady remembrances of past loves and ranges from stunning to atrocious and everything in between. 

Of the album’s themes, lead singer Matt Rogers said “Lyrically, I would say the album is kind of like a journal entry about the past three years — which has been both stunning and atrocious. A culmination of these reminders and stories about dating and gaining and losing power and taking control. It’s a reflection of our lives, and sonically it’s a reflection about all four of us coming together and writing what we wanted to be bangers. And I think we got a couple of them. You get the rock-and-roll side and you also get the dreamy Fleece side, so you get the stunning and atrocious, honestly.” 

The album’s title came from Rogers’ tendency to call things “stunning” or “atrocious” while on tour and became a joke between him and fellow band members when Daniel recorded himself parodying Rogers’ speech habits. 

With their unapologetic antics and sense of self, this quartet creates intimate and dreamy music that sticks with you long after the first listen. “Bodies Lie” is a dynamic and wonderful taste for a stunning record. 

Hennenberg said of her experience with “Bodies Lie” and this album,“That song for me is about some stuff that I’ve been putting off for a really long time and to write that into lyrics and think through the stuff that I’ve wanted to express for a long time about power and truth and honesty and wholehearted power. That’s been a big journey. And to have a band where we can do that is really cool. It’s been so natural. At the end of the day, it feels like I’m in a playground with my best friends. It’s pretty easy.”

A Stunning Future

“It kind of feels like we really found a group and in the future, I think it’s gonna be less of changing it up and more just like experimenting and trying new things,” Rogers said.

The self-proclaimed “queer quartet” is more like a musical family than a band, and this closeness creates a type of comfortable cohesion in their music and contributes to the overall psychedelic and quirky vibe of the band.

Fleece are unapologetically themselves on this record, and I can’t wait to see how they evolve.

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