Heaven Dilly Dally

Marrying simple but melodic tunes and impressionistic lyrics with a raw and thunderous guitar attack, Dilly Dally are an indie rock band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada formed by longtime friends Liz Ball and Katie Monks. Ball and Monks had been friends since high school; they were serious fans of the Pixies and the Strokes and later made their way onto Toronto's noise rock scene. (Monks was perhaps emboldened that her brother David Monks had earned some recognition as a member of the band Tokyo Police Club.) In 2009, the friends formed Dilly Dally, with Ball on guitar and Monks on lead vocals and guitar. The group went through three different rhythm sections during its early days, playing at least once a month at independent venues in Canada, but slowly but surely word of mouth began to spread about the group. In 2013, Dilly Dally crossed paths with producers Josh Korody and Leon Taheny, who helped them cut some material in the studio. The sessions with Korody and Taheny led to Dilly Dally's first self-released single, "Next Gold," which was released in the spring of 2014. In the fall of 2014, a second single appeared, "Candy Mountain," and Dilly Dally began earning enthusiastic notices in online music journals such as Pitchfork and Noisy. By the time "Candy Mountain" was released, Dilly Dally also had a solid rhythm section at last, bassist Jimmy Tony (who had previously played with Mexican Slang) and drummer Benjamin Reinhartz (formerly of Beliefs). The rush of media attention for the group and its growing following led to Partisan Records signing a deal with the band for the United States, and in October 2015 they released Dilly Dally's first full-length album, Sore. ~ Mark Deming