"Spiritual" is the number-one adjective used to describe Bruce Peninsula's hauntingly emotive sound in the Canadian music press - an apt word choice. The band's signature use of choir vocals may be the precocious culprit.
"Once you figure out the heart of the band - the ideal mood and emotion - you can set that to any genre of music and it will still come out sounding like your band," says Neil Haverty, a core member and guitarist.
For Bruce Peninsula, that ideal mood is the tightly knit harmonic group vocals that pervade their entire repertoire and which sounds most impressive in concert - especially in the favoured, acoustic environs of churches. Most of the press coverage surrounding Bruce Peninsula has focused on their awe-inspiring live performances, but the band's recently released debut album, A Mountain Is a Mouth, should not go ignored. In fact, it is already starting to garner some Polaris Prize buzz.
There may not be any traces of deities on A Mountain Is a Mouth - at least not for atheists - but because the band took over a year to meticulously exploit the many melodies present in their well-rehearsed songs, there may be other relics to be discovered.
"People say, 'Sometimes I listen to the record and I swear I heard an organ on this one song,'" says Haverty. "You didn't hear an organ. The clash of all the instruments together is producing a sort of phantom melody."
If the criteria for the next Polaris Prize winner included the ability to produce phantom sounds - which it should - Bruce Peninsula is undoubtedly the winner. On second thought, they deserve the prize anyway.