Chastity

Looking to the frustrated and often bleak surroundings of his hometown of Whitby, Ontario, Canadian musician Brandon Williams imbued his project Chastity with themes of isolation, anger, and displacement. Drawing influence from both post-hardcore heaviness and more sensitive ’90s alternative guitar rock, Williams channeled his angst into a series of lesser releases before offering the complex and brilliant debut Death Lust in 2018. Chastity evolved quickly on subsequent albums, exploring touches of indie pop jangle, pummeling riffs, and alt-rock radio-informed melodicism on records like 2022′s Suffer Summer.
Williams formed Chastity in 2015, enlisting various friends to help him bring his song ideas to life. The first release from the band came the next year in the form of a hand-numbered limited-edition cassette simply titled TAPE, released on the Toronto indie label Hand Drawn Dracula. They began performing live, eventually touring internationally. In 2017, they released the single “Peroxide” as well as the Chains EP. With each new release, the band further explored their sound, which continued to further meld both hardcore catharsis and alt-rock introspection.
Signing to indie superpower Captured Tracks, Chastity readied their debut album, Death Lust, which included revisions of standout tracks from their previous discography as well as newer material. The record was released in July 2018. Williams softened his approach somewhat on 2019′s Home Made Satan, adding the influence of wistfully jangly bands like the Smiths and the Go-Betweens to his normally distorted palette. After releasing a few singles in the interim, third long-player Suffer Summer was issued through the Deathwish label in January 2022. The album included more collaboration than Williams’ previous work, with songwriting contributions from PUP’s Stefan Babcock and a vocal cameo from Alexisonfire and City and Colour member Dallas Green on the song “Vicious Circle.” ~ Fred Thomas