Album Review: Ace of Wands – Future Wave

Future Wave really lives up to its name, as Toronto’s Ace of Wands create music that is looking forward, even as it has roots in the past.

The trio don’t delay in setting out their stall as they launch into Black River. The vocals may remind you of 70s Fleetwood Mac; the jangle of the guitar shimmered like shoegaze, yet the melody had a flow to it that got me thinking of bluegrass – folksy and complex.

It’s the vocals that make the strongest connections with me throughout, but it is on the title track that you really get the full force of what Ace of Wands have accomplished: rock, metal, folk-rock and alt-rock drawn together in a sound that is seamless and fluid.

When I covered Uncanny back in February, I wrote about how the driving tones of the arrangement and the tautness of the strings got me thinking of the tense scenes in Hitchcock’s Psycho and The Birds. In the context of the album, it acquires added meaning, veering into folk horror. That querying of the self becomes more existential, more urgent in nature.

And yes, the album is seamless and fluid, not afraid to rock out; adopting some dark textures on Violator and Edge of the Edge sonically and lyrically. The latter allows you to hear how the band’s different vocal styles combine to enhance the varied shades in the arrangement.

It also has a highly visual aspect to it, Burn Upon It has a eddying and esoteric air to it, one that you can easily imagine will have ad executives stiffing around, attracted by the slow build and strong string presence. It doesn’t sound like an outlier in the album, though, even as it resolves itself in dissonance.

I am certainly a fan of darkness in records, whether that be in the lyrics or the arrangement, and it is referred to in its various forms, literal and psychological, within the album. Even as Specter finds itself in that place, there is also lightness in the vocals, again in the lead guitar melody.

The band has cited Kate Bush, PJ Harvey, and Nirvana as touch points for their music; you can hear all three on Wanting, as it harnesses some heavy grooves, reflective lyrics, and vocals that lean into performance in a way that surrounds the listener on every level. That, for me, also invites comparisons to Castle Rat at one end of the spectrum, Ethel Cain at the other, the aforementioned Fleetwood Mac a pointer to how the vocals work on Future Wave.

Spiral Woman sees the album end on a high note: Ace of Wands once again drawing from the power of three, and of nature, to cast a spell on us all, with the assistance, as throughout the album, of Canadian rock legend Ian Blurton.

He acted as producer, engineer, and mixer on Future Wave, as the band recorded the thirteen songs on the LP in just a few weeks. It’s hard to process that it was recorded in such a short timeframe, such is the way it comes together in terms of sound, style and concept and in how it consistently works outside established genres.

Rock has such a long history behind it; we will also hear echoes in the past in music of the present. Ace of Wands accept that: they have spoken about how the album – their third – is like a new beginning for them, of needing to live in the present, remember the past, and look to the future with both hope and a hint of fear for what is to come.

This is the sound of a band that loves life with all its flaws, finding their way forward in an uncertain future, offering up their voices and thoughts as a guide for the rest of us on how to do the same.

Future Wave was released on the 28th of April, 2026, and is available Bandcamp in digital and limited-edition black vinyl formats. The album can also be heard on Spotify and YouTube. Be sure to connect with Ace of Wands by following them on Instagram or Facebook and find out more about the band and upcoming live dates.

Header photo by Joel Gale