Murray Lightburn’s lapel-seizing voice and intensely romantic lyrics earned him the nickname “Black Morrissey” in an early concert review, and the tag stuck as The Dears joined the likes of Arcade Fire and Wolf Parade at the forefront of the mid-2000s Montreal renaissance. But when fans went to see The Dears in concert, they were greeted with another surprise: The band’s French-kissed, Britpop-inspired epics weren’t being sung by some Damon Albarn doppelganger, but a Black man. That a band could sound so confident and fully realized on their first album was startling enough. Instead, listeners immersed themselves in The Dears’ cinematic vision free of any context-the CD artwork featured no photos of the group. When Montreal art-rockers The Dears released their debut album, End of a Hollywood Bedtime Story, back in 2000, it was before the internet made it easy to glean a band’s entire backstory before you heard a note of their music.
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