CKXU at Sled Island 2025: Day 2
Sunglaciers
Sunglaciers kicked off the gig with a psychedelic serenation of post-punk grooves and blissful melodies which blended harmoniously with the late-evening audience vibes. This full band harmony has been achieved through an arduous tour schedule that they completed in support of their 3rd album, Regular Nature, which took the band all the way through North America, coming down the west coast and coming back up via the east coast.
The band pushed sonic barriers with their performance; their second guitarist spent the majority of the songs creating a pillowy cloud of sustained reverb that echoed across the Legion’s pool tables and out into the C-Train station. Sunglaciers played a great set that set the night into perpetual motion. Go listen to their latest record Regular Nature!
Truck Violence
This set was probably my most anticipated of the entire weekend. If you are not aware, Truck Violence is a 4-piece “punk” band from Montreal that has been making some serious noise not only at their shows across the country but also off the hard work they put into their last record Violence, which was released last summer. The band is full of infectious grooves straight out of a sludge song, but the band is compromised by this full-bodied post-hardcore energy. This energy is critical, and mostly harnessed by their unhinged frontman only to be spwed onto the audience when most needed.
If I could only highlight one thing of their performance it would be their collective restraint within their songs. Multiple times throughout the set, the band would break into a more stripped back backing track which gave the frontman this fabulous foundation to drop some poetry on the audience. It created such an amazing and affecting set on the whole, as if Truck Violence weren’t just playing songs but communicating months or years of trauma to the entire audience.
Motherhood
Hailing from much further east than Montreal are the incredible art-rockers Mootherhood of Fredrickton, NB. Immediately, what jumped out at me with their performance was the inspiration points the band was drawing from. I was getting hints of Albini-era Pixies, some funky surf rock, and then some driving hardcore rhythms to tie everything into a cacophonous ball of noise. This sonic blend of styles was aided immensely by their power trio band composition. I said it yesterday and I will say it again today: power trios have the SAUCE. Especially at Sled, something about the Sled Island curation team, they can just pick banging trios, what can I say?
Something I know for certain is that Motherhood have a kicking record out called Thunder Perfect Mind, my favourite thing about the record might have to be the lyrical subject matter of the tracks. The bassist introduced one of their songs around the middle of their set as “a journey through the sky with detours after talking to the magical and mystical clouds that circle us constantly”. That’s hard. Check out their groovy yet heavy tunes!
Family Man played hailing from Montreal, QC gave the feedback lovers a run for their money at the Legion. This band had the most electric facial expressions the entire set, there was not a moment that you didn’t know how they were feeling. Blistering riffs in the blistering heat was all I needed on a Thursday night.
Tropical F*ck Storm
This just in, the forecast for Sled Island is officially calling for a Tropical F*ck Storm. Seriously though, this supergroup of Melbourne musicians blew me away. This is the most energy I’ve seen in a room so far this week and they kept the crowd moving for the entire duration of their hour-long set. With experimental punk music growing in popularity TFS is a perfect example of making the genre their own while staying true to its roots.
TFS also brought some of that classic Australian heat to the Legion. There is no way that venue was anything less than an oven once TFS hit the stage; it was disgusting, it was glorious. It was slick with sweat and sticky with beer. To attend this show was everything for me, not only is it one of my all-time bands but to catch them in an immaculate venue somewhat close to home is a dream come true. I also guess that last night was an album release show of sorts as well, TFS’s new record Fairyland Codex came out today, June 20th. I think we heard some new songs? But I cannot be certain because I was too busy being thrown around the mosh pit all set.
Photos by Kort Woycheshin (@flamesgrain), and Braden Hood (@spicy__salsa)
Words by Jeremy Collier, Braden Hood, and Kort Woycheshin