A band, LooseJaw figured out the hard way, is a puzzle. Two vocalists gone. One drummer gone. The rhythm guitarist moved behind the drum kit. Songs written by a four-piece, now played as a three-piece. The Orangeville sludge collective’s formula, in their own words: “You need all the correct matching pieces to create the best sound possible.”
The pieces that stuck are Ethan Mistry on vocals and guitar, Kaia Gladue on bass, and Ayden Brothel on drums. Active since 2025, they kept refining their sound, collecting material, and performing quite a lot despite whoever came or went. Finally, last month, their 100% human-made (AI-era, right), long-gestating debut LP arrived on Bandcamp, with CD and cassette editions from Bleed Weed Records.
Over a year in the making, it allowed the musicians to invent their own sludge-y type of sound, reflecting both their musical sympathies and long-ingrained approaches.
“We decided to throw everything into [the album] so that we have a proper repertoire, which would allow people to listen to our music and become fans,” the band shares.
Drawing on feelings and collective chemistry, each of the three had room to follow what felt right: Kaia foregrounding the bass, Ayden leaning on double-kick patterns, Ethan chasing a blues-y yet aggressive feel.
“We all kinda wrote our own parts in our own styles. We all have varying tastes in metal, which we put towards our individual parts, and threw them together to get our signature sludge sound.
Personally, for this album, I had lots of hardcore and metalcore influences such as Have Heart, Terror, As I Lay Dying, August Burns Red, Chris Adler specifically, and other staples of the genres. I love to use the […] swingy feel with the fills and snare backbeat to complement Ethan’s riffs and Kaia’s bass flow,” Ayden explains.
The “bass flow” is Kaia’s own term for what she threads through the songs, mostly relying on the naturalness of the process rather than on external sources of inspiration. For Ethan, however, his writing is a game of balance between what he absorbed and what he brings of his own.
“I often find myself wanting to write songs based on feelings, so I try to make the guitar sound like how I feel. A lot of my influences now also come from Acid Bath, Electric Wizard, and Chuck Schuldiner (Death). Overall, I want to still create something new and original, yet have my influences show through within my playing,” Ethan adds.
Long before the band committed their signature thick sludge to record, that sound was already rumbling through Ontario.
Native Orangeville is where the band performs the most. Earlier this year, comfortably staying there, the collective performed with the up-and-coming Canadian doomers AAWKS at the Order of Odd Fellows hall. Another venue, where the band’s backdrop is frequently displayed, is the Westminster United Church. Both venues serve as underground islands, having given local bands their first taste of what a concert feels like.
Close to Toronto, the band doesn’t rush to get swallowed by big-city culture, gathering audiences in neighboring and much less obvious towns like Newmarket, Orillia, and Guelph. That doesn’t mean that the band did not play in Canada’s most populous city, because they did. Yet, it is their small-town shows that, just like the aforementioned puzzle pieces, add to a bigger picture of the local music scene that is always at risk of being overshadowed.
The band is now preparing the official release of their LP on streaming platforms. But the ground beneath them isn’t steady: with Ethan and Kaia leaving to study this fall, the question of LooseJaw’s future resurfaces.
Still, even now, it is clear how valuable they are to the local underground. Their Instagram following alone is roughly 1% of Orangeville’s population, a meaningful share for a town of 30,000. And by drawing attention to themselves, like with the new record, for instance, they pull listeners toward the bands and venues around them. The collective is playing it by ear for now, but the ultimate plan is to keep LooseJaw alive. On our end, keeping them alive starts with knowing they’re there.