BESTiE's Funtime Happy Hour

They took third place in the final, but BESTiE's showcase performance at the Fortune Sound Club during last year's Peak Performance Project was unforgettable. Insane, even. Give or take a few details that might have gotten lost or more probably fabricated in the bottom of a beer glass, the Vancouver-based four-piece had most of the audience, all the other bands, several Canucks, one former president, and I think at least five of the seven dwarves on stage with them by the end of their set. And drummer Daniel Ruiz wore a furry purple dinosaur suit for the entire 45-minutes they were up there. He should have collapsed from the heat, but no. The band was on fire, and they took everyone up in smoke with them. It was inspired.

It should be noted that I know at least one Vancouver music critic who becomes apoplectic at the very mention of BESTiE, possibly because there's a kind of studied frivolousness to the enterprise, from that love-it-or-hate-it name down to the determinedly sunny "emoji-pop" genre they've invented for themselves. The sound exists in a bouncy place somewhere between afropop and post-punk, so we're already way outside of Vancouver's more traditionally miserablist inclinations, musically-speaking. But whether it's live or on record -- the band's Howard Redekopp-produced debut album No Bad Days was released last week, complete with the world's most ludicrous cover art -- it'd take a tin ear to miss the precision tooling of BESTiE's rhythm section or the remarkable versatility Andrew Janczewski brings to the guitar. The vibe might get a little goofy, but that playing? It's serious.