UK's Subba-Cultcha Magazine gives STOIC 4.5 out of 5: 'Stoic' Soul Nidus Records Radio-friendly grunge-blues without the corporate polish – and about time too. Canadian three-piece Soul Nidus are big news in their native country, and the self-released album Stoic makes it easy to see why. Bringing a refreshingly earnest and bullshit-free approach to stripped-back rock, this is a surprisingly good album. Surprising, because you've heard it all before. They say there's nothing new under the sun, and nowhere does that apply more than music. Which means it's not what you do that matters, but how you do it – Soul Nidus take the moody melancholic sound of grunge and the heart-on-sleeve honesty of blues and country lyrics, and combine them with a sneaky flick of the wrist into that rarest of things: a credible-sounding rock act who value substance over surface. The love-song is virtually a bankrupt institution, but tracks like “Promise” and “Angelina” breathe a broken sort of life into the form, while “Pyromaniac” has more genuine anger than a dozen haircut bands, without needing to resort to screaming histrionics or walls of Marshall amps. Frontman Ehsan Ashrafi's smoky vocals will have guys nodding in sympathy and girls sighing with lust. Make no mistake – this is the genre that Nickelback ruined for everyone, but Soul Nidus are sat in the rubble with a head full of songs, a dwindling packet of cigarettes and a plan to start picking up the pieces. Self-released albums are usually a warning sign, but Stoic appears to be an exception to that rule of thumb. The only reason I can imagine for Soul Nidus not having been snapped up by a label yet is that all the labels have forgotten what to do with a band who can actually write decent songs and play them with passion. One to watch out for. By: Paul Raven