New World Alphabet: USS Album Review

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, I’m pretty sure you’ve heard of USS aka Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker. The band is made up of the unique combination of vocalist, guitarist, and erhu player Ashley Buchholz (aka Ash Boo-Schultz) and turntablist/hype man Jason “Human Kebab” Parsons. The boys started their careers in the west end of Toronto, in one of my favourite neighbourhoods, Parkdale.

In August 2016 we were treated to a teaser track from the new album. During it’s first week of release, Work Shoes was the #1 added track in modern rock, alternative and all rock in Canada. This amazing reception of the lead track, set up the band’s next announcement: #SixInThe6ix. A Tour put together in partnership with Toronto’s 102.1 The Edge and Live Nation, it was a series of six  shows in six of Toronto’s best live music venues.

Like many Toronto-based bands, USS has had a little help from the folks at The Cameron House getting started. It seemed fitting that the first of the scheduled six performances would be at The Cameron House starting on November 14th. Followed by shows on November 15th at The Mod Club, on the 16th at The Opera House (this was the secret location in the lead up), on the 17th at The Rivoli, on the 18th at  Adelaide Hall and the boys finished out the tour on November 19th at The Danforth Music Hall.

Flash forward to January 13th, new release day and their full length album, New World Alphabet is out! The album is a great mix of songs with that distinct USS sound. I feel like these songs have a more mature feel. You can’t stop them from working their way into your brain in that classic USS way. Catchy choruses, thoughtful, provoking verses. I’m a fan.

This is the fifth studio album from USS and it was produced by award-winning Tawgs Salter. Travis has worked with Josh Groban, Lights, Lenka, Chantal Kreviazuk, Fefe Dobson, Midway State and USS and it looks like the pairing of Tawgs with USS is a great one!

Let me finish up by saying, if you haven’t seen USS live, you’re missing out. They put on an amazing live show!!! The guys headed out on tour January 12th across Canada with support from REPARTEE, Said the Whale and Youngblood. They’ll be heading to a theatre near you. Check their tour dates here!

New World Alphabet is here!

Listen to #USSNWA:

iTunes – smarturl.it/NWAitunes

Google – smarturl.it/NWAgoogle

Amazon – smarturl.it/NWAamazon

Spotify – smarturl.it/NWAstream

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Trish Cassling

Writer/Photographer/Editor

Toronto Music Blogger