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Jan 04, 2024 By Mark Redfern Photography by Colin Medley

Toronto-based duo Ducks Ltd. are releasing a new album, Harm’s Way, on February 9 via Carpark. Now they have shared another single from the album, “Train Full of Gasoline,” via a music video. Watch it below, followed by the band’s upcoming tour dates.

Ducks Ltd. is Tom McGreevy and Evan Lewis.

McGreevy had this to say about the single in a press release: “The jumping off point for this song was a friend telling me about the Lac Megantic rail disaster in Quebec. A 73 car train full of crude oil was left unattended and rolled down a hill before derailing and exploding in a town. I read about it a bunch, and to my understanding it was a scenario where a bunch of small errors built up and compounded each other, with the result being a catastrophe out of proportion with any of the individual failures that precipitated it. The song is about self destructive patterns. How if you try to ignore or minimize issues in your life they can manifest in places you don’t expect.”

The song features backing vocals from Ratboys’ Julia Steiner and Moontype’s Margaret McCarthy, as well as Ratboys’ Marcus Nuccio on drums.

Harm’s Way is the follow-up to Modern Fiction, which came out in 2021 via Carpark and was one of our Top 100 Albums of 2021.

McGreevy had this to say about the rest of the tracks on the album in a previous press release: “They’re songs about struggling. About watching people I care for suffer, and trying to figure out how to be there for them. And about the strain of living in the world when it feels like it’s ready to collapse.”

Ducks Ltd. previously shared the album’s first single “The Main Thing,” via a music video. “The Main Thing” was one of our Songs of the Week. Then they shared its second single, “Hollowed Out,” via a music video (it was also one of our Songs of the Week).

Dave Vettraino (Deeper, Lala Lala, Dehd) produced the album, which was recorded in Chicago.

Ducks Ltd. say they found themselves in a more confident place when recording Harm’s Way.

“When we got signed, we had played maybe five or six shows ever. After last year, it’s in the hundreds. That experience can change your perception of your own music and songwriting,” said McGreevy. “In the past when we got stuck on a song we had a tendency to look at our favorite records to see how they tackled it. But now, instead of asking ‘what would Orange Juice do?’, we’d ask, ‘what would we do?’”

The band released a new single in 2022, “Sheets of Grey.” It was one of our Songs of the Week but isn’t included on the new album.

Last year the band launched a cover song series, The Sincerest Form of Flattery. It included a cover of The Cure’s “In Between Days,” which featured Jane Inc (the project of Carlyn Bezic), as well as a cover of The Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1989 song “Head On.”

Read our The End interview with Tom McGreevy.

Ducks Ltd. Tour Dates:

02/08/24 - Toronto, ON @ Sonic Boom#
02/10/24 - Montreal, QC @ Taverne Tour Festival
03/06/24-03/10/24 - New York, NY @ New Colossus Music Festival
03/20-24 - Boise, ID @ Treefort Music Festival
05/27/24 - London, UK @ Moth Club

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