Stony Plain Records announces a November 4th release date for Time To Roll, the fifth album by award-winning Canadian blues/rock trio MonkeyJunk.

Time To Roll is unique in that it incorporates elements of all four of their previous recordings with added maturity in song writing and instrumentation, cementing MonkeyJunk’s originality and sound as its own. It is also progressive for the band, as they’ve added electric bass on most of the songs. No MonkeyJunk recording to date has included bass, but they felt that it would be a welcome addition to MonkeyJunk’s sound. In another precedent, the band also recorded one acoustic track for the first time on the new album.

Comprised of Steve Marriner on vocals, baritone guitar, bass, harmonica and organ, Tony D on lead guitar, and Matt Sobb on drums, MonkeyJunk is one of the hardest working bands on the scene today, performing at venues festivals around the world for over eight years. Continually pushing boundaries and blurring genre lines, the Ottawa Ontario-based trio has added an edge to their music by incorporating swampy blues & rock with thoughtful and intelligent lyrics.

Time To Roll was recorded at Signal Path Studios in Almonte, Ontario and mixed and mastered in just over two weeks spanning across two months. “The writing and recording process was different on Time to Roll in many aspects. All of the past records have been made over periods of 6 months to a year - starting and stopping many times over those longer time frames”, says Matt Sobb. “We were only in the studio for about 3 weeks all together and that is by far the fastest and shortest time we’ve ever made a record…but it was intentional to do it that way. We wanted to push ourselves to work hard and to work efficiently and focused - to see what we could come up with in a shorter period of time.”

MonkeyJunk has delivered 10 top-notch tracks that are consistent with the quality and passionate delivery they are known for. Heading back to their blues roots and drawing on inspiration that runs from John Lee Hooker and Lightnin’ Hopkins to J.J. Grey & Mofo and The Meters, Time To Roll showcases deep grooves, fervent vocals and soulful, original material plus a cover of Albert King’s classic “The Hunter.” Time To Roll was co-produced by Ken Friesen, who also doubles as a co-songwriter. Kelly Prescott, Tom Wilson and Stony Plain label-mate Paul Reddick also lent their songwriting talents to the recording.

No strangers to awards ceremonies, MonkeyJunk has won a collective 20 Maple Blues Awards, two Canadian Independent Music Awards, a Blues Music Award (USA), and have been nominated twice for a JUNO Award, winning the award for Blues Album of the Year in 2012.

You can catch MonkeyJunk live @ the Rum Runner October 7th @ 8:00 PM for their customer appreciation event.