Press Clippings

Cult Montreal’s #37 Best Montreal Song of 2020

CBC Music 5 More Songs You Need To Hear

“There is a lot of great music coming out of Canada lately, or maybe it is just I know more about this extremely creative scene now…The most interesting album for me nevertheless is by the Montreal based band Lawful Citizen. Their ‘Internal Combustion’ is a wild and captivating mix of heavy guitars, powerful saxophones and a grooving rhythm section. Evan Shay on tenor sax, Aime Duquet on guitar, Antoine Pelegrin on electric bass and Kyle Hutchins on drums are behind this outstanding music, which successfully integrates jazz, metal, electronica and Americana into something new and definitely worth checking out.”

-Wulf Muller, Okeh Records, Germany

“It sounds like a jazz group trying to be a hard rock band, very successfully. If we're talking internal combustion engines, we're talking late 1960s/early 1970s muscle cars with big fat V8s under the hood, and maybe some glass pack mufflers affixed to the hot tailpipes—Dodge Chargers and Pontiac GTOs, painted black…the accelerator gets pounded to the floor, the pistons pump, rear wheels spin on cold blacktop and the street race is on.”

-Dan McClenaghan, All About Jazz, Philadelphia USA

“The post-bop (Lawful Citizen) mix modern themes and harmonies on this album that includes separate tunes and a four part ‘Internal Combustion Suite.’ Of the opus, the ambitious songs include rich guitar work from Duquet propulsed by Hutchins on ‘Suite I’ leading into spacious open lands on ‘Suite II’ before the team gets free and frisky with Shay’s tenor and Pelegrin’s bass on ‘Suite III’ and concluding with an angular ‘Suite IV.’ Modern musings with creative cohesion.”

-George W. Harris, Jazz Weekly, California USA

“Lawful Citizen is a Montreal-based jazz rock band, which, with ‘Internal Combustion’, has created a monster of an expressive work. There is something melodious about the album, but also almost avant-garde, as the goal of the four musicians was to create a distinctive and hard-boiled mix of free jazz and hard rock. The album is fascinating, compassionate and challenging.”

-Ivan Rod, Copenhagen, Denmark

“What is notable about Shay is that he has taken the fundamental knowledge that playing in a Grammy-recognized, award-winning, world-class high-school big band will ultimately give you, and built on it. Shay has grown into a multi-faceted musician who performs avant-garde and deep, improvised music with odd musical configurations (Run & Hide), contemporary jazz ensemble groups (Lawful Citizen) and more traditional combos with his Evan Shay Standards Band.”

-Scott Morin, CBC Music’s 35 best Canadian jazz artists under 35, Canada

“Lawful Citizen's debut album is multi-genre mix that is powerful and intoxicating and delves the listener into a progressive jazz experience filled with thunderous and unpredictable instrumentation that is mesmerizing, ambitious and at times poignant. I applaud these four talented musicians for stepping outside the boundaries of contemporary jazz and allowing their eclectic visions to create music that is unique and exceptional.”

-Memphis Marty Delia, The Jazz Music Blog, Australia

“This is not music for an ‘afternoon tea.’ The tenor saxophone pulls quietly in the opening track to gradually unleash a small storm...Shay & Co. clearly have a preference for the heavier work. An intriguing debut.”

-Georges Tonla Briquet, Jazz Halo, Belgium

“Internal Combustion by Lawful Citizen is a stunning debut from this Montreal band of guitar/bass/drums/tenor sax. Inspired by the sound a motorcycle makes upon ignition, it goes from metal to jazz to electronica, from beauty to rage, from testosterone-fueled adventurism to lyrical love letters.”

-Mike Greenblatt, The Aquarian Weekly, New Jersey USA

“Evan Shay is its most prominent voice, both as soloist and seemingly as main composer of all eight tracks of this band’s debut. His sidemen, playing electric, bass, electric guitar and drums respectively, provide solid backing for the leader who runs the whole gamut, from breathy whispers to all-out assaults…Their approach is anything but scholarly, as it draws as much from rock, punk and electronica than it does from jazz. All the more power to them, and all the more pleasure for listeners with big ears.”

-Marc Chenard, LaScena Musicale, Montreal Canada