Never Sing Alone

Motorists — 2026

“Never Sing Alone proves Motorists are one of the most reliable guitar pop bands working today.”

Motorists are a four-piece band out of Toronto that has been quietly building one of the more consistent catalogs in Canadian indie rock. Craig Fahner handles vocals and guitar, Matt Learoyd plays bass and sings, Nick McKinlay sits behind the drums, and Moa-Linn Rosenlöf rounds out the lineup on guitar and vocals. The band’s whole concept sits in the gap between the freedom people associate with driving and the everyday grind of traffic jams, detours, and bad news on the radio. They put out their debut Surrounded in 2021 and followed it with Touched by the Stuff in 2024. Now, less than two years later, they are back with Never Sing Alone, their third full-length. The record was produced and mixed by Chris Cohen, the songwriter known for his work with Deerhoof and his solo releases on Captured Tracks. It was tracked across studios in Toronto, Brooklyn, and Gothenburg, which gives you a sense of how much effort went into making it feel bigger than their previous work. Canada has a long history of producing bands that do this kind of guitar pop really well, and Motorists belong in that conversation. Never Sing Alone is another strong entry in a catalog that keeps making the case for them as one of the better power pop acts the country has put out in recent years.

Never Sing Alone is a guitar-driven record with a lot of chime and bounce to it. The band leans on clean, ringing guitar lines, tight rhythms, and songs that get to the point fast. There is a warmth here that keeps things from feeling too polished or cold. The album carries motorik rhythms and tightly wound power-pop hooks shaped by the whole band working together. Think bright melodies sitting on top of something a little heavier underneath. It moves well and rarely overstays its welcome across 11 tracks.

Compared to Touched by the Stuff, which was recorded entirely in Toronto and had a tighter, more contained sound, Never Sing Alone opens things up. The band worked together to chase something more lush and layered while keeping the melancholy that runs through their music. Cohen’s touch as a producer is noticeable. He brings a cleaner shine to the arrangements without stripping out the grit. Rosenlöf’s presence as a full member also adds another guitar voice and harmonies that give the record more texture than anything they have done before. The songwriting still belongs to Fahner and Learoyd, but the sound itself has more room in it now.

Fans of Superchunk, Teenage Fanclub, and Ducks Ltd will like this album. The Ducks Ltd comparison is especially fitting given that both bands come out of the Toronto indie scene and share a fondness for bright, fast guitar pop that does not take itself too seriously. Walt Mink and Velvet Crush are also good reference points, bands that understood how to build a song around a strong guitar hook while keeping a melodic center. There is also something in the DNA of R.E.M. and early Crowded House running through the record, particularly in the way the melodies carry a hint of unease underneath all the brightness. If you follow Canadian acts like Alvvays or Sloan, Motorists fit comfortably into that same world.

“Frogman” is the easiest entry point on the record. It started as a real memory Fahner had about a scuba diver surfacing from the water on Vancouver Island to return a fishing lure he had snagged. From there it turned into something bigger about freedom, escape, and suddenly losing something without warning. The guitar work on that track is some of the best on the album. “The Damage” goes in a different direction. It comes paired with a self-directed video that casts the band as contestants on a lo-fi dating show, nodding to VHS-era visuals and public-access TV weirdness. Learoyd wrote it about the strange things people put themselves through for love and connection, and the way reality TV turns that struggle into entertainment. The lyrical wordplay and delivery here sits comfortably in Sloan territory, sharp and a little cheeky without ever losing the point of the song. “Scattered White Horses” earns the record’s most direct comparison to early Crowded House. The lead vocal carries that same kind of emotional pull Neil Finn was so good at, where the feeling behind the words hits you before you have even processed what is being said. It has plenty of sing-along moments that are hard to get out of your head once it lands. “Cristobal” is the lead-off track and another strong one that sets the tone for the whole record early.

The writing on Never Sing Alone tends to work best when it stays grounded in specific moments and images rather than going too abstract. “Frogman” is the clearest example of this. Fahner takes one odd, real-life encounter and builds a song around it that ends up saying something honest about loss and holding on to things. Learoyd has a different approach. He usually works in metaphor and abstraction, so writing “The Damage” with actual characters and a concrete storyline was a stretch for him. It paid off. The record as a whole sits with the idea that people are trying hard to connect while something in modern life keeps getting in the way. That tension comes through without the band having to explain it too directly.

Never Sing Alone is a solid step forward for Motorists and an easy record to recommend to anyone who loves this corner of guitar pop. The first two thirds move with real confidence, the songs are sharp, the production adds dimension without taking over, and the stronger singles give the album a clear identity early on. The last third does not quite match that momentum, but there are no bad tracks here, just a few that do not stick as hard as what came before them. Overall the band pulls it off more often than not, and Cohen’s production gives the whole thing a fuller sound than anything in their catalog so far. With a wider sonic range and a sharper sense of how to tell a story, Motorists are clearly building toward something.