June 27—The No No Room (underneath Dock Ellis). It’s no secret that I’m passionate about electronic music. I covered a rave back when I first started writing here. I went out of my way to get us in to see Magic Sword when they came by last year. So it was no surprise that Jojo had Shallow Waves put my name on the guest list for last week’s show.

This was my second or third time back at The No No Room. And like my last review, it was another basement venue (the kind of place where there’s not so much a stage, so much as there’s a section of the floor where the band sets up). This place trades retro-modernity for an alternative hangout style, situated underneath a sports bar.

Zaid Khan, the band’s lead, is the one who invited me out. He made me feel right at home as soon as I checked in. While waiting for the first band to go on, I got to thinking: “What is it with people who make some of the loudest, most aggressive, and angriest music being some of the nicest folks?”

The show had a satisfying arc: I liked each band more than the last, though partly because of taste rather than talent.

The Openers: Big Year

Big Year kicked things off as the openers, a four-piece grungy indie outfit with a sound akin to 90s-era Green Day (or at least, a Zillenial’s vague recollection of 90s-era Green Day). They clearly know what they’re going for: a punk-meets-grunge rock energy. They’re not quite there yet, but I think once they are, their “indie birdrock” sound will take them far. Even if its not my cup of tea.

That said, based on vibes (their Instagram has three posts over about a year), they seem to be just starting out. I’m reminded of some of the bands formed each semester in my university’s music program. They’re competent musicians, but there was some sloppiness that the band’ll have to tighten up if they want to expand beyond their friends or whoever happens to be at the bar for listeners.

For example, the band seemed just ever so slightly off-pitch at times, with some clashing harmonics between the vocalist and either the bass, guitar, or both. It wasn’t present during solos or every chorus, but it was noticeable enough. The vocalist also seemed a little nervous onstage, stumbling over his own words once or twice. In fairness, there was a moment—maybe a tick, maybe nerves—where a little refrain (I believe it was in ‘Crucify’) took three tries to get right before launching into ‘March of Thorns’.

The style they’re going for doesn’t demand perfection, but it does require confidence.

Don’t let my critiques give you the wrong impression though: people were still dancing and moving to the music. So perhaps these are the gripes of a specialist, not the general public—which means they shouldn’t have any problems playing in front of audiences while they improve.

Setlist:

1. Complain
2. Loud Enough
3. Malarkey
4. Crucify
5. March of Thorns
6. Good for You
7. Flyby

Check out their (rather sparse) Instagram @itsgonnabeabigyear to watch their development as a group.

Volatile Youth

As they set up, I noticed the crowd get a little more goth and alternative looking. I saw more black, more witchy earrings, and at least two identical Ministry t-shirts. This tracked with a synth being present in the lineup. The band—Tom, Ryan, Joel, Dan, and Sam—immediately delivered a more atmospheric sound than the last one, with softer and more laid-back vocals. They brought kind of a shoegaze vibe, with a slow tempo, and the synth feeling underwater and dreamy. Good sonic screeches from the synth and guitars added to the Gothic feeling, though I wouldn’t call this a goth band. Everyone but the drummer seemed to have their instruments ran through at least a pedal or two.

This was good late-night music that would nonetheless be at home on some of my alternative playlists.

Setlist (best as I could read it – hit me up guys if I got it wrong)

1. Alright, alright
2. California
3. Starry Eyes
4. Strange Summer
5. Keroval
6. Seasons in Exile (this one was a real tough one – I almost just wrote unintelligible)
7. IIII Guns

King in Yellow

Unfortunately, due to border issues, King in Yellow couldn’t make it (not the first time this has happened with shows in the city).

Shallow Waves

Headliners Shallow Waves took the stage at 11:22. They opened with a harsh wall of howling noise which immediately set the tone for a driving industrial set in the likes of Nine Inch Nails or the Prodigy. Their songs were beating and pulsating. Badass.

Their songs were beating and pulsating. Badass. A driving bass drum beat that you could feel in your chest. At one point early in the set, the Nic angled his synth towards Zaid, creating a sort of tug of war between the two of them in their performance style.

Some standouts included the unreleased Habits, Cycles and Patterns, and Stay Intact; as well as the 2025 release “Whispers,” in which I particularly like the reverberating melody that opens and permeates throughout the track.

I loved the way the band performed, as if so moved by their own music to be in pain. (Multiple times, Matt would practically writhe on the floor.) The trio—Zaid Khan on guitar and vocals, Nic Waterman on synth, and Matt McLeod on bass, backed by a drum machine (sorry, drummers)—were quite the expert headbangers. They formed a sort of triangle with each other but avoided the problem of being turned away from the audience by moving around each other, even crossing the “stage” and going into the audience. I was able to move with them too to get some crazy video:

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Zaid sent me their setlist, which includes quite a lot of unreleased music!

1. Habits*
2. Connected*
3. Surface Level
4. No Devotion
5. Cycles and Patterns*
6. Stay Intact*
7. With In Tension
8. Whispers

*unreleased upcoming album spring 2027

Overshadowed by City-Wide Events?

All three bands were more than talented enough to warrant a packed basement, each of them being a different sort of style or aesthetic that I see people go crazy for online. The No No Room isn’t very big—about half the footprint of the bar above at street level. So why is it that, by my headcount, the crowd had thinned to less than 15 people by 10:30 PM? (I believe four of which were members of the other two bands.)

Maybe Pride and the World Cup are taking people away from the nightlife? To illustrate the point, the sports bar upstairs was packed when I came in, a projection of a match playing in the back. At 10:45 PM, five or six more people came in, and I was relieved to see that even more filtered in by the time Shallow Waves was performing. They brought out a similar crowd of goths and goth-adjacent-types—one of whom I spoke with knew the keyboardist Nic.

Final Thoughts

Shallow Waves proved they can command a room, even a small one. Volatile Youth showed they have a rich, atmospheric sound worth exploring. Big Year showed they have potential.

I think that the show was hurt by an unfortunate case of timing and competing events. But for those of us who came by and stuck around, we witnessed a night of grunge, shoegaze, and industrial noise that showed the range of Toronto’s underground music scene.

I’ve already been incorporating what I’ve heard from Shallow Waves into my playlists alongside industrial heavyweights.

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