Vancouver, BC collective the Salteens is set to return with its first full-length in seven years, Grey Eyes, in stores October 12 on Boompa. The band, led by songwriter Scott Walker, made an initial ripple in the pond earlier this year, releasing the Moths EP and appearing on the much heralded Nickelodeon children's show, ‘Yo Gabba Gabba." In addition to Grey Eyes, the Salteens have announced they will take part in next month's ‘Yo Gabba Gabba' Canadian tour (full dates below). While on the tour, the band will be selling a six-track EP, titled Kid Songs, including the two tracks performed on the show, "I'm So Happy" and "Be Nice To Animals." A 4-song digital version will also be made available for fans not fortunate enough to be on the tour route. That's a slew of activity for the Salteens. And all well warranted, what with Grey Eyes featuring 10 of the band's most spectacular songs recorded to date. Grey Eyes nods towards sophisticated ‘60s European and American pop constructionists and the brass-tacks workmanlike hit-makers of yore, while acknowledging transformative pop heirs from the ‘70s and ‘80s. The album captures the freshness that marked the dawn of popular music and periodically renews it - no matter what hurts and indignities pop songs are woven from, a transcending embrace of possibility remains a genre fundamental.

This is key to an album that was inspired by a great deal of grief for Walker, whose father passed on and whose mother struggles with Alzheimer's, leaving him to assume those adult roles we all try to push off, accept dashed dreams and expectations and look forward in this uncertain time. Through this, the pop law holds: the lower the lows, the higher the highs. And so it is that Grey Eyes - polished, crisp, sprightly, and architecturally realized - is a sublime and energetic continuation of the band's catalogue.

The Salteens released their debut, Short-Term Memories in 2000, followed by the acclaimed, college-radio topper, Let Go of Your Bad Days in 2003, which The National Post called "Summer-perfect pop" and Entertainment Weekly declared "Canadian pop... that would do Karen Carpenter proud." Grey Eyes more then lives up to the anticipation of seven years, and boldly looks forward.