Toronto-based alt-rocker Cam Kahin has released his debut album, CHUG.
Having started making music during the pandemic, 23-year-old Cam Kahin hasn’t wasted any time getting his name out there. Over the past couple of years, he’s performed with Cloud Nothings, Cautious Clay, and Inhaler, has played European festivals The Great Escape (UK) and London Calling (the Netherlands), as well as the Montreal festival Osheaga.
CHUG is a harsher, more heavy move for his sound, but in many ways was the natural next step for the young artist, who has spent the last few years persistently surviving during a cavalcade of difficult times. CHUG started off life as a series of home-recorded demos, before Cam Kahin took them to producers David Steinmetz and Jeremiah Pick, before heading onto Catherine North Studios in Hamilton to work with longtime collaborator Will Crann.
The result is ten emotionally honest, driving tracks, all of which have come straight from Cam Kahin’s innermost and rawest feelings.
“This album is deeply personal,” he said. “I wanted to write exactly what I was feeling without overanalysing it. Out of that came this theme of persisting, even when it feels impossible. That’s what CHUG means to me; just pushing forward, full steam, no matter what.”
Over the course of the 31-and-a-half-minute long LP, Cam Kahin’s rough vocals spit out his feelings with a pop-punk-tinged edge, both incredibly familiar and deeply nostalgic to anyone who was a Midwest emo fan in the late 2000s. But CHUG has a little more edge, and is definitely more rhythmically punk than sugary pop, evoking the mood of bands like Biffy Clyro or Ash.
This is particularly true on one of the lead tracks, “yeah right!”, which starts off gritty with heavy bass and an almost danceable four-on-the-floor beat alongside some melodic finger-picking on the guitar, before the chorus brings in some heavier crashes as Cam Kahin sings “I don’t really give a fuck what I’ll amount to/I’ll get it down/if I don’t break a rib/Ill hit the ground/but I can take it”. There’s a genuinely sweet youthfulness to it, as well as a determined sense of self that refuses to be broken – which is the album’s overall theme, and one which it absolutely nails.
Another stand out track from the album is the California alt-rock moodiness of “read the room”, which sees Cam Kahin forgo his rougher vocals for a sweeter tone. He almost coos the words “there’s a space for you/right by me/not a thing to do/confide in silencing”, and this track ends up feeling very much like something Incubus might have put together in their early days.
Of course, it’s not just Cam Kahin’s youth that makes this album so open and honest, despite that, in his own words, this is “an album I’ve wanted to make since I was a kid.”
“I hope people feel how much I care,” he says. “I think a lot of people feel jaded. If this album can make someone feel less alone in that, or even give them a little push to keep going, then it’s done what I hoped it would.”
There could have been the chance with CHUG that this kind of raw, emotive storytelling can come across as saccharine, or potentially even step over the line into outright mawkish. The trick that Cam Kahin has managed to pull off, however, is a real sense of honesty about his work, on this LP in particular. Sure, a calculated design-by-committee set of tracks can – and do – create emotional responses in a listener, but what Cam Kahin has brought to CHUG is something much more organic.
This definitely comes across on the driving, distorted track “tied up”, which despite its more upbeat tone has some of the album;s darker lyrics. Cam Kahin sings “what a waste of oxygen/to see straight/when you’ve been on and off again/these days/hold your breath for another day”. What’s behind this track particularly is a palpable sense of pain, even if it’s the kind that makes you grimace and vow to carry on.
Its twin track is “limbo”, which was inspired by Cam Kahin finding himself getting more and more sick of issues like homelessness and addiction becoming totally ignored in his home city of Toronto. He said: Instead of addressing the root causes of these issues, we often just slap a charge on them and push them out of sight. This song speaks to that reality.”
The track’s fuzziness helps with this sense of unreality, creating a sonic barrier to mimic the one Cam Kahin mentions between people who need help and those who have the ability to help them, but choose not to. “Limbo” builds to a tense crescendo towards the end of the track, before suddenly falling off, creating a disconcerting and sudden end – which only serves to make it stick with the listener.
Overall, CHUG is a rock solid debut offering from Cam Kahin, offering up both comforting heaviness and emotional honesty at a time when it’s most needed. If this change to his sound is one that he plans on sticking with for the foreseeable future, then it’s one that should absolutely work out.
Connect with Cam Kahin: Instagram
