Montreal-based band Spite House formed in 2019 as vocalist/guitarist Max Lajoie’s creative outlet shortly after losing his mother to cancer. Joined by longtime friend Marc Tremblay and bassist Nabil Ortega, the trio quickly found their voice—a powerful blend of vulnerability and energy rooted in post-hardcore with nods to punk and emo. Their 2022 self-titled debut captured the start of their journey and passion for authenticity and connection, which fueled them to produce their upcoming sophomore release, Desertion out Sept 12 via Pure Noise Records.
For Lajoie, the start of his musical career was something he had always dreamed about pursuing, and driven out of necessity and a deeply personal turning point, his goal came into sharper focus.
“I wanted to sing in a band for all my life, but I was kind of scared of doing it. Then my mom passed away, and it was very sudden, so when that happened, me and (our drummer) Mark, decided to start a band,” Lajoie recalls. “We did the first LP that was kind of about just realizing that life’s too short to live in fear… (The goal) of Desertion was to revisit that with an adult perspective,” he says. “I wanted to kind of re-appropriate that story and relive it and get the lessons that I could get out of it, by making something creative.”
If Spite House was a wake-up call, Desertion is catharsis, confronting grief while navigating adulthood. Get up, live, and savor the short time we have because you aren’t promised tomorrow. Desertion as the sequel, unfolds like a poetic release as each track takes listeners through the story of Lajoie’s process of coping, and entering adulthood while encountering unimaginable growing pains. Their first LP spares nothing in exploring affliction and loss, setting the stage for an even more unflinching approach on its follow-up.
“With Desertion, (we wanted) to be very straightforward with what the album is about, lyrically, but also sonically,” says Lajoie. “The second record I really wanted to be like, okay, so now that I’m awake, what do I want to say? What do I want to revisit? Those were the things that I wanted to touch on, and they’re much darker.”
“Ashen Gray” opens the record as Lajoie grapples with guilt face-to-face, confronting the paralyzing feeling of staying stationary while life around you moves forward. The song paints a narrative around the tension of growing up without truly growing, propelled by serrated, adrenaline-laced guitar riffs and implacable drum beats into a distortion‑saturated track.
The succeeding tracks inevitably take on a similar form to shape the powerful storyline that Lajoie describes as a journey of processing consuming distress in a productive way: “This whole album is […] about leaving your home in grief, but also becoming an adult through [those experiences]. The sonic of it is more (a) reflection of that, so it’s way more aggressive. We kind of lost that little bit of pop-punk that was in the first LP. I wanted to explore more of the aggressive side while still keeping the same influences in the realm of ’90’s post-hardcore like Jawbreaker or Seaweed.”
With a strong vision and narrative guiding the album, the band went into recording with content ideas but unrestricted creative control, as Lajoie also individually recorded and produced the release via his recording and prod space. That freedom, while empowering, also proved exhausting–every decision rested on them, leading to a meticulous process of developing ideas, recording and mixing everything in-house, fine-tuning multiple vocal takes, and even pre-production mastering before sitting with songs for months to revisit and completely rework them until they felt right, a level of control Lajoie embraced to ensure the final result matched the band’s vision.
“I wouldn’t trust anyone else with the project, at this point at least. It’s so important to me that I want to have the control, even if that means that I’ll spend months and months on it. Nobody’s going to care as much as I do about the final result, so that’s how I justify it.”
That same sense of personal ownership and vulnerability threads through the album’s closing track, “Coma Dream,” which ends the record on a reflective and intentionally unresolved note following the revelation of gut-wrenching clarity: “‘Coma Dream’ is a song about a recurring dream I’ve had many times, where my dad is going to die, and I try to save him but I can’t. Waking up from those dreams is a constant reminder that the loss of my dad and the way I built my identity around that trauma and tragedy are part of who I am,” Lajoie recalls.
“So the song ends with a question: Will I ever fully heal? But it’s more about what healing really means. Is it about dealing with the pain? Is there even an end to it? Or is it just learning to live with it, adapting to carry it for the rest of your life? It’s this whole realization that even after observing these events, writing songs about them, and facing those problems head-on, the question still remains.”
In its entirety, Lajoie’s immovable transparency drives the heart of this record to invoke significance both in its message and soundscape, exciting fans to hear it as a whole and anticipate what’s next for Spite House.
With standalones already available for streaming and the release underway, the band is gearing up for a tour in September, heading to parts of Ontario they haven’t played before with The Dirty Nil and Heart Attack Man. Lajoie says, “We’re playing so many [new cities for us] in Ontario, which is awesome and is going to be a lot of fun. And The Dirty Nil is such a big band in Canada, so I think those shows are going to be pretty cool. It’s definitely going to be fun.”
Fans can look forward to additional tour dates coming this fall in October and November, and keep their eyes on what’s ahead for 2026. Stream Desertion out Sept. 12 via Pure Noise Records.
Desertion is out Friday and you can preorder it off of Pure Noise Records. Follow Spite House on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Photo Credit: Rose Cormier
