Time flies for a band when they’re having fun, and for Synthetic Friend, the last few years have flown fast. After forming in 2022 through shared dreams and humor, the Winnipeg-based group worked on honing their sound and drumming up hype, which led to them selling out their debut show in 2023. They went on to open for local favorites and play a set at Real Love Summer Fest, earning respect from the Winnipeg music community.
Their debut EP, Catching the Outlines, now gives listeners outside of the city – in Canada and around the world – to enjoy Synthetic Friend’s spin on indie. Fans of Snail Mail, Lomelda, and Alvvays will appreciate the vulnerable lyrics and soft melodies that rise into fuzzy bangers.
We covered the first and last tracks on the new EP at the end of last year: “Potion Seller” and “Nanaimo”. “Potion Seller” was the last track recorded for the album, catching the band at their most intimate, with vocalist Emma Stevens writing it as a love letter to their partner of ten years. “Nanaimo”, which was the first single from the band, crescendoes into a rousing ending, repeating a phrase which echoes the theme of accepting having to grow up: “Time moves so slow/But I know/To embrace the call”.
“Renovations”, a new track from Catching the Outlines, takes a more slacker rock sound, which fits the angsty vibe of the song’s lyrics (“All of the, the guts in me/All the anger/You tell me that I’ve learned a thing or two”). Stevens’s gutsy vocals stem from the emotional factor of the song: It was inspired by their uncle, who had passed before they were born. The lyrics channel their desire to stay connected to their memories, even as everything seems to fall apart.
The other new track from the record, “Baby, You’re My Microwave”, picks up the pace with a more indie-pop vibe, uses some tongue-in-cheek wordplay, likening the radioactivity of a microwave to a toxic relationship: “Hey baby, you’re my microwave, you spin me ‘til I’m hot to the touch/But inside, my heart is freezing”. It shows the band’s ability to craft catchy hooks in both words and music. If MTV were still a thing, their creation of a music video to accompany this song, which would certainly have featured an exploding microwave, would have done numbers.
The title Catching the Outlines stems from having to figure out the boundaries of the world while growing up, as Stevens says: “We spend our lives finding, loving, hating, and catching the outlines of the world around us; maybe one day we’ll see the bigger picture, but probably not, and I find that more reassuring than anything.” Stevens and the rest of Synthetic Friend have spent the past several years figuring out those outlines together, making great music in the process, and as time continues to fly for the band, they will most certainly find a way to break through those outlines and grow bigger than ever.
Synthetic Friend is Emma Stevens (vocals), Aaron Simard and Ashton Fontaine (guitars), Kaity Cummings (bass), and Tomi Lawrie (drums). Catching the Outlines was produced, engineered, and mixed by Winnipeg-based producer Adam Fuhr. Take a listen to Catching the Outlines below.
Written by Will Sisskind
