Chains of Love: Garage-Soul Group Plan to 'F---ing Giver' at CMF

Buzz has surrounded Vancouver garage-soul six-piece Chains of Love since the release of a couple well-received 7-inches in 2011, and with their debut EP, 'Strange Grey Days,' dropping this month, the band faces the difficult task of explaining their revival of '50s and '60s girl-group sounds.

"Modern and new is completely overrated," guitarist/producer Felix Fung tells Spinner. "How many modern things are... I mean if you hear something no one has ever heard before, it's usually pretty unlistenable. I find [older styles] broad enough I can put all my ideas into it. It's just music people know and like."

Fronted by vocalist Nathalia Pizarro and Rebecca Marie Law Grey on harmonies and guitar, the band draws from reverb-heavy Motown and Phil Spector creations like the Ronettes, yet they take issue with being called a "retro act."

"It's not meant to be retro; that music is really vital to all of us today," Fung insists. "When I hear a Motown or Beach Boys song, it still makes me happy today -- it doesn't make me think about how people were happy in 1966. I don't have the idea of old and new. [Unless] it's done on a computer, it's still the same notes and chords, no matter how you fancy it up."

"We just wanted to create a bigger sound," Pizarro adds. "And a lot of older music has [that]. It's not just a synth, a keyboard looped over itself."