If John Hughes had been born in Cape Breton, and instead of a filmmaker he had turned to music, he would probably wish that his best efforts to produce a coming-of-age song could sound a lot like “Fuse,” the latest single from The Town Heroes. It’s got small-town magic, the heady bloom of young love in the late ’90s, and all the excitement that a brain full of hormones can handle.
Anyone who has caught The Town Heroes performing live more than a few times is probably already aware that the band is available in a variety of flavours: from a hard-hitting rock duo of Michael S. Ryan and Bruce Gillis, to a practically orchestral variation that includes multiple musicians and, conversely, has a tendency to bring out their acoustic side. The latter has been reflective of their more recent recorded work (particularly their album Again), but their newest single, “Fuse,” takes a hard turn back to the heavy guitar and bass sound of their rough and tumble duo days, making for their most exciting release in years.
“It’s closer to the sound we had a few years back, but it wasn’t as though we were trying to capture the nostalgia of our sound or anything,” says Ryan. “It just kind of happened that way.”
“We still play two-piece rock shows. We play five-piece acoustic shows. We’ve been doing acoustic shows for the past few years with completely different versions than the rock versions. Ultimately, whatever serves the song best is what we wanted to do.
“I think as long as we’re passionate and engaging with our performance. That’s all that really matters.”
Rather than a hard commitment to rolling back their sound, The Town Heroes are breaking out all the tools from their toolbox to craft a larger concept album. While the band is keeping mum about the concept itself Ryan explains that the intention at the heart of the album was to craft something decidedly fun, particularly in light of recent circumstances.
“Ultimately, I wanted to write a summer album, with summer themes and nostalgia for a time in my life that seems so long ago now,” says Ryan.
It’s awfully hard to sidestep those first fumbled motions of the teenage romance laid out in the lyrics though, that concept can only be about one thing: Michael S. Ryan meeting his first love, Molly Ringwald, in an Inverness coal mine.
“Fuse” is set to appear on The Town Heroes’ upcoming album, Home, which releases August 20, 2021.