After the release of their third critically acclaimed album Coat of Arms, The Golden Dogs were at the tail end of an exhaustive touring schedule and facing the departure of their long-standing drummer. They were ready to give up.

“Not long after the last show, we sold the van and started contemplating our musical existence. Classic story,” says Dave Azzolini (vocals, guitar).

Along with his wife and fellow Golden Dogs leader, Jessica Grassia (vocals, drums), the prolific duo who maintained the core of the group’s striking brand of high-energy, smart power pop suddenly found themselves in a sort of musical limbo.

In 2012, the couple moved into an apartment on top of their Toronto-based studio, Ill Eagle, and slowly began to work away at new material – experimenting, demoing, and even tossing around new bands names. Trusting in the magnetic and infectious chemistry they share, both on stage and off, Azzolini and Grassia spent years working towards something new. That process also saw Grassia move away from the keys to the kit and the eventual addition of two new members: Stefanie McCarrol (keys, guitar) and Alejandro Cairncross (bass).

The lineup change injected new life into the Golden Dogs.

“Music became fun again and we were proud to be back on the scene playing songs with the same fierce love that we had done for years before,” says Azzolini.

In the whirlwind of this renewed enthusiasm the band is set to release their new album 3 ½ - an unrelentingly catchy, raw and radically diverse set of tracks. Largely mixed at Sloan’s studio by Zeus’ Carlin Nicholson, and featuring a track recorded live off the floor with Joao Carvalho at Revolution Recording (“Decided”), the album is super-charged and invigorating, new, yet refreshingly familiar. Arguably at their most mature and inventive, the Golden Dogs continue to deliver their token high-energy sweaty fist-pumps, hypnotic kick drums and guttural yells – the kind of triumphant power pop that has helped the band cement their cult-like status within the ranks of the Canadian music scene.

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