A claim to authenticity by guitar bands and indie bands, let alone a punk bands, remains considerably present these days. The life of White Lung singer Mish Barber-Way before the release of the band’s fourth album “Paradise” (Domino), however, showed little demand for urgent self-expression: “I am content in my life, which is really bad for writing songs. I’m not newly heart-broken or falling in love or struggling, so my dopamine is down along with my creativity. I’m married, content and happy. I make fine money. I like what I do for a living. I’m all serotonin”, she explained in a conversation with Annie Clark aka St. Vincent. The response of this Canadian band to the new bourgeoisie is as clever as it is genre-atypical: it signifies progress and a change in perspective. With the help of producer Lars Stalfors, they actually sound like 2016 in 2016; the bronchial trio now inhale homeopathic doses of pop and shoegaze, and what doesn’t induce a cough for Barber-Way in her own reality, she even knows to attribute to a third party: “Two songs are written from the voice of famous serial killers. Another song is two people fighting. This album is schizophrenic. I took from books, stereotypical love fables and turned them.”

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