Montreal new-age punk outfit NOBRO were playing a show the day after the United States
Supreme Court overturned the right to access an abortion in the country. The four band
members, all women, were shaken and furious, but that night vocalist/bassist Kathryn
McCaughey led a righteous toast against the decision: “This next song is dedicated to setting
our vaginas free!”
It was a spur-of-the-moment response to the news, but the phrase stuck with McCaughey. It
began to feel like something more than a throw-away slogan. It felt like something deeper, a
defiant rallying cry to kick against the exhausting struggles of life. It felt like NOBRO’s debut
full-length record, Set Your Pussy Free.
Due out October 27 on Dine Alone Records, Set Your Pussy Free is a caustic, celebratory,
glorious party-punk firework show. It’s a record about the ecstatic pursuit of personal escape
and liberation even as the walls are closing in, a 21st century power-punk analog of Born To
Run that rages against modern life’s restrictive pressures and dares them to a game of chicken.
If a hurricane is bearing down on NOBRO, they’re spitting into it, arm-in-arm, with middle fingers
raised. From the opening sleaze-rock thunder of title track “Set That Pussy Free” through to the
sprinting glee of closer “Gimme More (Party Through The Pain),” bandmates McCaughey,
Karolane Carbonneau (guitars), Lisandre Bourdage (keys/percussion), and Sarah Dion (drums)
make clear that they aren’t interested in playing by whatever stupid rules have been set around
them.
“As a musician or artist or even a woman, you have to throw off the weight of societal pressures
and expectations, especially as you get older,” says McCaughey. “You have to take risks and
chances.”
NOBRO is the space where the four of them get to take those risks and chances. It’s a place for
cultivating power and happiness in a hard, mean world. That means the stakes are high. “Music
is where we lift each other up,” says McCaughey. “I wish it was more like a fairy tale. We just
want this fucking thing to work. But we’re all gonna succeed together, or we’re all gonna fail
together.”
McCaughey wrote most of Set Your Pussy Free with Toronto-based producer Thomas D’Arcy,
and when it came time to record, there was only one name in consideration: Dave Schiffman
(PUP, Rage Against The Machine). Schiffman agreed, and joined the band in Montreal for
nearly a month to prep and record at Mixart Studios in the dead of winter. “We allowed
ourselves to go in crazier directions, just to see where it would take us,” says Bourdage. She
adds that because of how it was recorded—live off the floor, all four members playing at the
same time, mistakes and all—it represents who NOBRO are more than any other release.
Through the weeks of 12-hour studio days, McCaughey was still working full-time at a bar at
night. It was a long month. “The desperation in my voice on the record is real,” she grins. “It was
a struggle, but I felt like I stayed true to myself, you know?”

The record’s opener establishes the tone with dark, grimy riffing and McCaughey’s all-too-real
exhaustion: “Wanna think big, wanna dream big, but I gotta clean the puke out the bathroom
sink,” she groans on the verse. The tongue-in-cheek romp “Let’s Do Drugs” gives way to a
brain-melting power-punk internet spiral (“Delete Delete Delete”) that sets up “A.I. Sexbots,” a
conga and bass driven reflection on doing your own thing.
It’s true that the desperation on the record is palpable, but so too is the joy. The road-dog
punk-rock anthem “Where My Girls At” recounts the band’s formation and early days playing the
dive bar circuit, selling t-shirts out of garbage bags and building the bonds that have taken the
band to where they are today. “Where my girls at, where my girls at?/Gonna start me a rock and
roll band!” McCaughey calls on the jubilant chorus. “Let’s Get Outta Here” furthers that energy
with restrained verses that burst into a wide-open, keys-pounding chorus: “This day job ain’t
doing much for me/If we get outta here I know we’ll be free/Let’s get outta here!”
Closer “Gimme More (Party Through The Pain)” is a warm, riotous celebration of love and
companionship, as McCaughey belts, “If the whole world goes to shit, and we all say to hell with
it, I know I got you, you got me, I got you, you got me, and we’re gonna fuckin’ party!” It ends
the record with a reminder of what this is all about: finding moments where you feel free and
happy, whatever that means for you.
“You can’t lose that childlike enthusiasm towards what you’re doing,” says McCaughey. “It’s so
fun to play music and forget about your problems, even if it is momentarily. Even if you know
that it’s not gonna make you happy long-term, for like a minute, you can maybe let yourself
believe that you will be.”
Set Your Pussy Free is the culmination of years of work, hundreds of shows, and thousands of
miles since the band’s creation in 2014. McCaughey, Carbonneau, Bourdage, and Dion have
been building NOBRO into one of the most fierce and exciting bands in Canada. The new
record rides the momentum from a string of blazing singles and EPs, capped with 2020’s Sick
Hustle and 2022’s Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar.
Listeners big and small have been taking note: Iggy Pop played their track “Bye Bye Baby” on
his BBC Radio 6 show, and a fictional band in the Netflix series The Imperfects covered their
songs. Aside from taking their raucous live shows to every dive bar across Montreal, the band
has also toured across North America and Europe with PUP, Alexisonfire, Billy Talent, Fidlar,
and The OBGMs. In May 2023, they opened for Blink-182 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. And
they’re just getting started.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

SHORT VERSION
Due out October 27 on Dine Alone Records, Montreal new-age punk outfit NOBRO’s debut
full-length record Set Your Pussy Free is a caustic, celebratory, glorious party-punk firework
show. It’s a record about the ecstatic pursuit of personal escape and liberation even as the walls
are closing in, a 21st century power-punk analog of Born To Run that rages against modern
life’s restrictive pressures and dares them to a game of chicken. If a hurricane is bearing down
on NOBRO, they’re spitting into it, arm-in-arm, with middle fingers raised.
“As a musician or artist or even a woman, you have to throw off the weight of societal pressures
and expectations, especially as you get older,” says vocalist and bassist McCaughey. “You have
to take risks and chances.”
NOBRO is the space where the four members—McCaughey, Karolane Carbonneau (guitars),
Lisandre Bourdage (keys/percussion), and Sarah Dion (drums)—get to take those risks and
chances. It’s a place for cultivating power and happiness in a hard, mean world. That means the
stakes are high. “Music is where we lift each other up,” says McCaughey. “I wish it was more
like a fairy tale. We just want this fucking thing to work. But we’re all gonna succeed together, or
we’re all gonna fail together.”
Produced by Dave Schiffman, Set Your Pussy Free is the culmination of years of work,
hundreds of shows, and thousands of miles since the band’s creation in 2014. McCaughey,
Carbonneau, Bourdage, and Dion have been building NOBRO into one of the most fierce and
exciting bands in Canada. The new record rides the momentum from a string of blazing singles
and EPs, capped with 2020’s Sick Hustle and 2022’s Live Your Truth Shred Some Gnar.
Listeners big and small have been taking note: Iggy Pop played their track “Bye Bye Baby” on
his BBC Radio 6 show, and a fictional band in the Netflix series The Imperfects covered their
songs. Aside from taking their raucous live shows to every dive bar across Montreal, the band
has also toured across North America and Europe with PUP, Alexisonfire, Billy Talent, Fidlar,
and The OBGMs. In May 2023, they opened for Blink-182 at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. And
they’re just getting started.
Don’t say we didn’t warn you.