Dilly Dally’s debut LP, Sore, can be most usefully compared to an intake of breath, and then a glorious, restorative exhale. It’s an odd comparison to make, perhaps, as lead singer Katie Monks’ voice has a distinctive wheeze that makes her sound sort of like a heavy smoker about to cough up something bad (and that leaves her sounding more like Courtney Love than even Courtney herself), but this breathe in/breathe out happens, as regular as breath itself, throughout Sore’s eleven songs.

Take, for example, the strains of guitar and whispery groans of vocal that open Get To You. Sighing backing vocals signify a gasp of air in, but it’s a thunder of bass, drums and Monks’ bullshit-draining roar that finally shunts out the bad, leaving room for clean air.

The full effect of this technique is maybe seen most effectively on second single, and the album’s defiant anthem for change, Purple Rage. Most of the songs on Sore are addressed to a specific, sometimes pined after, sometimes reviled individual, but this song seeks to inspire the listener into transforming themselves into someone better than before – and the stop/start punchiness of the song shakes free of shackles and brims with a renewed, self-supplied power.

Without getting too yogic, deliberate deep breathing is meant to heal and calm us, and that’s what Sore both seeks and attains. Raw, gasping, and wincingly emotionally intelligent, this Toronto band’s debut is an exercise in catharsis through the power of unapologetic exaltation.