Magazine

We get it. Not everyone loves metal like we do. The harsh vocals, heavy distorted guitars and blast beats can often be a turn off. But even the most hardened metalheads didn’t start their musical journey listening to the most brutal of death metal bands. We had to be slowly eased into the genre, beginning with something accessible before diving deep into pure aggression.

Content Warning: Mentions Indigenous children’s unmarked graves and residential schools

In the opening sequence of Ste. Anne, a lone figure slowly makes her way across a prairie field at dusk. A train whistles in the distance. It’s fall, and foreboding storm clouds have gathered just above the horizon. 

We learn that this is Renée (played by filmmaker Rhayne Vermette herself), a Métis woman whose family hasn’t seen or heard from her in four years, including her young daughter Athene (Isabelle d’Eschambault). 

Now, without a word of warning or explanation, she has decided to come home.

Songs about getting reckless, getting wasted, and getting naked tend to fall in and out of fashion frequently, but for the better part of a decade, they absolutely dominated the airwaves. The hair was high, the clothes were tight, and the dudes looked like ladies, because hard rock ruled, the supply never ran dry, and it seemed like the party would never end. Of course, it did, as all good times do, and no matter how many bands have tried, a true hair metal revival has always been perpetually around the corner, and also forever out of reach. What that era left behind is a legion of true believers, semi-regular airplay in strip clubs and sports stadiums, and the stories. Holy shit, the stories.