A Juno Award-winning indie rock ensemble from Vancouver, British Columbia, Said the Whale specialize in melodic twists and turns peppered with quirky yet bittersweet musings that reflect a climate prone to overcast days. Led by dual songwriters/vocalists Ben Worcester and Tyler Bancroft, the band emerged in 2007 with a pair of well-received EPs, employing a quirky folk-pop sound that evoked contemporaries like Arkells and Wintersleep. They added electronics to their arsenal for 2017's As Long as Your Eyes Are Wide, but returned to the more guitar-based sound of their earlier works on 2019's Cascadia and 2021's Dandelion.

Said the Whale was founded in 2007 by Worcester and Bancroft. Former members of such bands as My Buddy Dave, the Millionaires, and WordsOverMusic, the two soon expanded the group's membership to five, adding Jeff LaForge (bass), Spencer Schoening (drums), and Jaycelyn Brown (keyboards). After stabilizing the roster, the band quickly got to work on EP projects, two of which would see release as free online downloads. Their first album, Taking Abalonia, was released in 2007. Canada got another look at the full-length a year later with bonus tracks added (under the new title Howe Sounds/Taking Abalonia). The critically acclaimed Islands Disappear arrived in 2009, and in 2011 Said the Whale took home the prize for New Group of the Year at the 2011 Juno Awards. In 2012, after replacing Jeff LaForge with Nathan Shaw, the band released its third studio album, Little Mountain, which performed well on the Canadian albums chart on the strength of the singles "Heavy Ceiling" and "Loveless." 2013's Hawaii also saw chart success, landing in the Top 20. Down to the trio of Worcester, Bancroft, and Brown, they returned in the spring of 2017 with their fifth long-player, As Long as Your Eyes Are Wide, which was produced by Cayne McKenzie of fellow Vancouver outfit We Are the City, and saw the band ditching the acoustic instrumentation of prior outings in favor of a more voltaic approach. 2019's Arts Crafts-issued Cascadia marked a return to the heartfelt and homespun indie folk sound of the group's debut. The band issued the singles "Honey Lungs" and "Sweetheart" in early 2021 ahead of the release of their seventh full-length effort, Dandelion, which arrived later that October. ~ James Christopher Monger, Rovi