CANCERS are an Athens-based alternative love child born to Ella Kaspar (DEAD DOG) and Lenny Miller (UNFUN) by way of Vancouver, Canada and New York City. The two met while toiling away on tour with their respective previous bands, and joined together out of a desire to craft their own music free from compromise. The result consists of crushing melodies, dreamy pop girl vocals, and new alternative guitars. While Cancers’ sound does evoke familiar grunge-era angst, Kaspar’s airy vocals, comparable to Beach House’s Victoria Legrand, distinguish the band from their predecessors, marrying vulnerability with sex.

With their debut album Fatten the Leeches, the couple crawl hand-in-hand through anguish, alienation, despair and into the light. Tired of being pigeon-holed in the lo-fi DIY of their past, the band enlisted Jack Endino to produce the album. Endino’s early work with Seattle heavy-weights like Nirvana, Hole, Babes in Toyland and Soundgarden, established him as a king of underground rock records, and has been referred to as “the godfather of grunge.” Fatten the Leeches delivers, resolving Cancer’s adolescent desire for distortion and riffs with a satisfying pop sheen.