There is a version of Canadian rock that doesn’t announce itself — no arena reverb, no flag-waving, just a guy who’s read too much Kerouac and spent too many winters in Toronto watching the light go grey.
Nomad Soul is that version, and it might be Jason Collett’s best hour.
The Record Itself
Collett had already made two solid albums before this one, but something clicked differently in 2008. He recorded at Soma Studios and Hotel2Tango in Montreal, which tells you something right away — Hotel2Tango is where Godspeed You! Black Emperor lived, where Arcade Fire tracked their early work, a room that has plaster dust in its DNA and a very particular tolerance for atmosphere over polish.
The production is his own, with Dave Newfeld sharing the board on certain sessions. Newfeld had done work with Broken Social Scene and knew how to let a track breathe without losing it entirely to air. The record sounds like a long drive that starts in late afternoon and ends somewhere you didn’t plan on.
The band assembled here reads like a BSS reunion by another name: Andrew Whiteman, Charles Spearin, Justin Peroff on drums. Peroff is one of those players who understands that restraint is a technique. He sits just behind the beat in a way that makes everything feel slightly weighted, slightly melancholy — exactly right for this material.
What’s Actually Happening On These Songs
Lead track “Bury the Hatchet” is the album’s clearest statement of intent: a road song that sounds like it was written in a truck stop at 2 a.m. but performed with the patience of a man who has decided not to rush anything anymore.
“Fire” sprawls in the best way. “Gonna Make It Up To You” is the kind of melody you catch yourself humming three days later without knowing why. There’s pedal steel woven through several tracks — subtle, never showy — and it keeps the whole record from tipping too far into alt-rock gravity.
The sequencing matters here. This is an album that builds its own weather system and asks you to sit inside it. The second half gets quieter in a way that rewards people who don’t skip ahead.
A Particular Honesty
I want to say something plainly: Collett has never gotten the attention he deserved outside Canada, and Nomad Soul is the clearest evidence of that injustice. The songwriting is in the company of Elliott Smith or early Wilco — specific, unhurried, emotionally precise without being theatrical about it.
The title is apt. There’s a restlessness running through every track, but it isn’t anxious. It’s the restlessness of someone who has made peace with motion, who finds more truth in a moving car than in a fixed address.
He sings like a man who has been places and isn’t entirely sure what they meant yet. That uncertainty is the whole point.
Put it on after the house goes quiet. Let track two roll into track three without touching anything.