At times it appears unclear whether Montreal is under constant construction or endless demolition. Were an extraterrestrial to visit from some faraway galaxy, they might be forgiven for thinking that municipal powers are purposely hastening Montreal’s destruction, cobblestone by cobblestone. There are only three things to be sure of in this city: death, taxes, and orange cones.
As I speak over speakerphone with the musician and core member of The Dears, Natalia Yanchak, infernal beeping and pounding from some kind of heavy machinery resounds just outside my apartment window. I feel obliged to apologize for the noise.
“What? Construction in Montreal?” Yanchak exclaims, dripping with ironic wit.
It is immediately apparent that we are from the same planet.
13 months ago, I was fortunate enough to be in the audience at the Rialto Theatre on Avenue du Parc for a POP Montreal-affiliated double bill that The Dears played with fellow Indie Rock royalty, Stars.
Commemorating the double-digit anniversary of No Cities Left, Yanchak, life partner and songwriter Murray Lightburn, and the rest of the band in an extended form performed their most recognizable album in a way that transcended reminiscence and vaulted the gig into mythical territory. It was simultaneous haunting and exorcism.
Now, The Dears have returned with their ninth studio album, Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! — a title borrowed from a spontaneous moment onstage last September when Lightburn and company encouraged the crowd to chant those words along with them. Say it thrice and make it so.
I don’t generally go in for audience participation. But my voice was among the chorus that night, if only because it can’t possibly hurt to utter something true, in unison, when asked politely. It wasn’t compulsory. But it nonetheless felt necessary.
“It was really a beautiful moment,” Yanchak recalls. “For us, we were very grateful to do that, to be able to be there with our friends, and fans, and family, and it just became kind of a mantra: Life is beautiful, life is beautiful, life is beautiful.”
It is precisely this sort of earnestness that has over the years attracted listeners to The Dears and sparked some sneering criticism. The hipster taste-making website Pitchfork in 2003 called them “likeably pretentious;” The Guardian defined their vibe as a “pathological quest for drama;” and NME said they could be “wincingly sentimental.”
Today, though, with nothing left to prove, and having outlasted a generation of detractors, the band is finally allowed to own their endearing sensitivity — with song names like “Babe, We’ll Find a Way” and “This Is How We Make our Dreams Come True.” Emotional maturity simply doesn’t get more unabashed than that. Yanchak is acutely aware of the tropes.
“Everyone has ups and downs,” she muses. “Life is always changing. Everything is always changing. The people around you are changing. You are changing. You are getting older. The people around you are getting older. Or they’re passing away. Or they’re never talking to you again. Or there’s new people coming into your life. It never stops. I think there is a very strong theme on this album, definitely, of that. But also, of inviting people to acknowledge that, to look at their own lives. Great things are going to happen, and terrible things are going to happen. But at the end of the day, your life is valuable. It’s challenging, but that’s part of being a human in modern society.”
Born in Toronto, Yanchak relocated to Montreal in the mid-1990s to attend Concordia University, and to get serious about musicmaking. She played in bands in high school, she says, and “messed around” as a teenager. “I did take some piano lessons,” Yanchak concedes. “But I was never very good at anything. And I still feel very humbled when I’m onstage with my bandmates. I can play. But I’m probably the worst musician on the stage.”
Yanchak’s early musical tastes were steeped in disparate genres and reflect diverse influences. “My dad when we were in the car would either have the radio on the Country & Western station or the Oldies station. And my mom listened to this artist called Ottmar Liebert. He’s German, although it’s like Spanish-style acoustic guitar. Extremely ‘90s. That, and also that Enya album.”
We talk at some length about the 1990s as a high watermark when musical silos started to fall and scenes began to cross-pollinate. “At that time,” Yanchak remembers, “I really got into Björk. I was a Björk superfan. I needed to know everything about Björk. So, I bought that Sugarcubes album, Life’s Too Good. When she released her first solo album, there were a lot of dudes making music. And then Björk came on the scene. How could she not be this influential kind of goddess? That was so huge at that time.”
While Lightburn remains the band’s principal composer, all of these ingredients have filtered into Yanchak’s contribution constructing The Dears’ catalogue. “We’re influenced by a lot of super random things ranging from Neoclassical to Jazz to Soul to Glam Rock — so many things,” she says.
Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! captures shades of Shoegaze and Electro but remains reassuringly close to the melancholic Britpop DNA that defined the band throughout their career. It is not, however, overly saccharine or nostalgic.
“Philosophically, memory is important,” Yanchak explains, “but regret is not important. Oftentimes, nostalgia can be coupled with emotions of triumph or regret. ‘What if I had done things differently, or what if things had happened this way, or that way?’ For me, nostalgia is superfluous in a way. Nostalgia is just a point of reference. It’s important to be grounded in the now.”
On both micro and macro levels, the world is a very different place now than it was when Yanchak embarked upon her journey as an artist. North America is like another republic. Montreal is an alien metropolis that has caught up with the capitalistic impulses of other international cities.
“I don’t know if anywhere is a viable place to be an artist anymore. But I couldn’t see myself living anywhere else in Canada,” Yanchak concedes, as the jackhammers echo outside.
She and Lightburn, romantic as well as creative partners, have managed to navigate their relationship in a climate that seems to demand accelerated turnover, perpetual novelty, the archetypal rise-and-fall narrative. The Dears may have faltered, but they have resisted annihilation.
“I think artists do feel a responsibility to help and to guide people,” says Yanchak. “Art inspires people by its very nature. And it compels people to be emotionally connected. That emotional connection can mean so many different things. It’s not religious. It’s not organized religion. But it’s spiritual in its own way. And I think that that responsibility is just implied within creative people. Art, if it is successful, will speak to people in all kinds of different ways. It’s an inherent awareness. Especially after being an artist for 20-plus years, there’s an awareness that there is a power there — a power to communicate with people and connect with people.”
“What,” she asks rhetorically, “do you want to do with that power?”◼︎
Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! Life is Beautiful! is released 7 November 2025 via Outside Music.
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