Track By Tracks: Among Legends - Lose My Grip (2026)

1.H/A/C/K:

Mitchell: Across a number of years, we worked on 20-25 songs, many of which became contenders for Lose My Grip. I think this was the first one that really clearly marked a change in our band's sound, and I was a little apprehensive to bring it to the rest of the band at a time when we had just become a trio after six years of being a five-piece. A change in sound right after a change in lineup? A walking bassline to start the song, played by a guy who only learned bass like six months earlier? Yelling vocals instead of singing vocals? It's all different! But I think embracing all that change allowed us to expand what we write about, and maybe get to some more urgent ideas - like how greed so easily prevents people from doing the right thing, even if they have the means to make a massive impact. Nobody needs a billion dollars. Nobody needs a trillion dollars. But everybody needs food, shelter, and clean drinking water on a planet that isn't going to burn up.

2. Sound The Alarm:

Mitchell: Once I got over my nerves of showing H/A/C/K to the band, it felt like the door was open for writing more aggressive songs. I had the chorus chord progression stuck in my head for about 15 years - it showed up in a previous song that didn't make the cut for Take Good Care - and this was the one where it finally stuck. Despite the breakdown in the middle, this is one of the more optimistic songs on the record, and I really like how it acts as a sort of response to all the stuff in H/A/C/K. What's the solution to the problems created by a bunch of billionaires who don't care about the rest of us or the planet we live on? Doing what we can, together, to make the world better for everyone.

3. Go On:

Mitchell: I friggin love this song. It's short, it's fast, and the production really pushes it over the top. When we recorded Lose My Grip, I was working most mornings and then coming in for the afternoons, which meant I got to hear some stuff after it had been recorded instead of while it was happening. And when I heard what Tyler and our producer Matt had done with those extra guitars near the end of the song, I was instantly covered in goosebumps. There are a million incredible guitar moments on this record, but the stuff they did for this song has turned it into one of my favourites that we've ever done. Everything is maxed out, Sara's drums are insane, this is my 1.5-minute apology for writing so many long songs on the last record.

4. Back Again:

Sara: Back Again is basically a love letter to music and being in a band. Like many people who enjoy spending time in crowded bars singing along to songs, the COVID pandemic was a really difficult time for me. It felt like this thing - music - that was basically an all-consuming pastime and constant source of affirmation, would never return to the way that it used to be. Watching live-streamed concerts just made me sad - because as much as they were an important way to support artists during that time, they couldn’t compare to the sense of community and catharsis that screaming along with a room full of people could give. I’m so glad that we’re able to experience live music again, and I’m grateful that I get to continue spending all of my time and money on a hobby that teenage me would be stoked on.

5. Hollow:

Sara: The chorus melody for Hollow popped into my head at work one day, and I scrambled to record it in my office using a pretty terrible online piano tool so that I wouldn't forget it. This song is about a specific time in my life when I had a couple of friends going through a rough patch, and a different group of friends making some really exciting moves in life. I felt stuck in a sort of no man’s land - I wasn’t really struggling, but I also wasn’t feeling great about where I was at, so I couldn’t relate to either group in a meaningful way. I was sure that this song wasn’t worth demoing for the record, but Mitchell convinced me that we should give it a go, and it ended up making the final cut for the album, so I’m glad that he did!

6. Familiar Fictions:

Sara: Familiar Fictions was a tricky song to write. I came up with the intro/verse chord progression one night while I was noodling around on guitar, and really liked it, but wasn’t sure how to build the rest of the song around it. We went through several iterations, changing the structure and writing a new chorus progression, before finally landing on something that felt right. I think the ooohs in the chorus really pull everything together, and Tyler absolutely nailed the guitar part in the second half of the song. The moody, spacey vibe of the guitar really fits with the more introspective nature of the lyrics. Thematically, this song is about wanting to say something to someone, but being afraid of the consequences - even though you suspect that they might already know what you want to say. I tried to be slightly more abstract with these lyrics than I might typically be, and I’m pretty happy with them. This song as a whole was a bit of an experiment, and I think it was worth the effort.

7. Floating Here For Years:

Sara: Floating Here For Years was the first song I ever wrote for this band, and was probably the first real song I'd written, period. Before this, I'd played around with some ideas on the ukulele, but it took the monotony of COVID lockdowns to convince me to buy a guitar and try my hand at fleshing out those ideas into something that had a structure and lyrics. At the time, I was a few years removed from university, feeling stuck at a job that I didn't like and in a routine that seemed like it would never change. When the pandemic hit, there was a new sense of stasis, and this song delves into the anxieties that go along with not knowing how to pull yourself out of a rut.

8. Open Wide:

Mitchell: In some ways, Canada has recently had a reckoning with the way Indigenous people have been treated throughout history. In other ways, it seems like almost nothing has changed - even as information about neglect, abuse, murder, and coverups continues to be brought forward. Some handwringing here, a somber acknowledgement there, some flags at half mast. But when it's presented as news stories, it's so easy to watch with dismay for a while and then just turn away to continue on with our own lives. This song is an attempt to express that Canada's true history cannot be something that we simply hear about on the news, with the option to turn it off whenever it gets too much. There are generations of people in this country who don't have the option to turn it off. We need truth in schools, truth in government, reconciliation that is deemed appropriate by Indigenous communities, and clean drinking water for all.

9. Band Dudes Fuck Off:

Sara: Band Dudes Fuck Off is a response to every shitty dude who thinks they can talk down to people who don’t fit into the straight-white-guy-in-a-punk-band club. It’s endlessly frustrating to be ignored in conversations, have the instrument that I play explained to me as if I’ve never seen it before, or to hear how it was completely unexpected that I might actually be good at drumming and not just a novelty. The punk scene is changing - it’s becoming more interesting and diverse, and that’s amazing - but change is slow, and wow does it suck to have to constantly fight to be taken seriously. To bring all of this to life, I really wanted to have a female voice on the song - and we are forever indebted to our guest vocalist, Laura DeRocchis, for absolutely nailing her part. Laura plays in an extremely rad band called Hysterics, and she brings such an attitude and snarl to the lyrics here. She has an incredible voice, and made everything about the song better - I’m so glad she agreed to feature on it.

10. Oversaturated:

Mitchell: This song is about a person I knew for about 72 total hours. I was 3,000 kms away from home, we met by total chance, and we connected instantly. It was like everything was fast-forwarded, probably amplified by the fact that we both felt like there were countdowns over our heads: me for only being in town for a short while, and her for the surgery she was scheduled to get in a few weeks to work on a brain tumour. So we got to know each other, shared our favourite music, drove around to see some sights, and then fairly quickly lost contact. I don't know where she is, or if she's even alive - but I hope she's out there doing well.

11. What's It Gonna Be:

Mitchell: This was a late addition to the contenders for the album, and I'm glad it made the cut because it's got the lyric that gave us the album name. I think the subject matter is pretty clear on this one - feeling pulled in two different directions, freaking out about which path to take, and knowing there's going to be substantial loss no matter what you choose. This is another song that our producer Matt really punched up, adding effects in the bridge to make things more emotional, and Tyler nailed the solo at the beginning. Shoutout to Sara's angelic vocal feature near the end of the song, which most people in the room were uncertain about, but I think makes the ending absolutely shine.

12. The Last Time:

Mitchell: When I was growing up, most of my friends lived within 3 blocks from my house, so we would get together all the time and go to our elementary school's playground, or the woods nearby, or just run around the neighbourhood. A few years ago, one of those friends passed away. I processed that news with another friend, spending a night talking about those memories and realizing how vivid they still were, and this is sort of a supercut of those memories. Sara has some great drum and vocal moments on this song, but I think the true star is Tyler's guitar solo to close out the song and the record. It's beautiful and thoughtful and perfectly situated for the song. I'm glad we chose this as the closing track - there's a lot of darker stuff on this album (including this song), but it ends with a brief moment of hope, and I think that's a nice way to end the record.

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