With a brand new EP out in the world, Bend Sinister is hitting the road, starting with a show at the Cobalt in Vancouver last Friday.

I caught most of the set from opener Crystal Eyes, with their shoegazey dream pop. Singer Erin Jenkins joked about hitting the crowd with all the feelings, as their moody songs kind of blended together. But near the end of the set they kicked it up for a couple more high energy songs, which I quite liked, and made me want to keep an eye out for them in the future.

From there, it was time for Bend Sinister to celebrate their new release, with singer Dan Moxon on keys, guitarist Joseph Blood, Matt Rhode on bass, and drummer Dicky Neptune were joined by JP Maurice on, well, everything else.

They started off with some songs from the new EP, including the rollicking "Move A Little Slower", the intense "Get Along", and the bombastic title track "Walk The Other Way", before moving on to something of a band retrospective, Dan saying they'd be playing one song from each of their albums. Starting with the earliest, the title track from Through the Broken City all the way up to '014's Animals with "Best Of You", and including some of my favourites like "Time Breaks Down" and "Things Will Get Better", which started out with Dan alone on the keys before the rest of the band joined in as the song burst forth with its cautious optimism.

From there, they threw in a couple brand new songs, but also the instant-classic sing-along "Rock N Roll" from the new EP, before ending the set with a cover of Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World" -- a song they recently played as part of a set where they played songs from the Forrest Gump Soundtrack at the Vancouver Fringe Festival.

Of course, they weren't quite done, coming back for one more song, another brand new one, this time one no one had heard before, a bit of a love song called "I Do" that rocked its way to the end of the night.

I've said before that Bend Sinister was one of the first local bands I saw as I was getting "into the scene" and they remain one of my favourites, especially to watch live, with an unmatched energy & sound that could fill arenas.