Deux Troix is a noisy, abrasive rock band—but it has a heart.

Made up of lead vocalist and drummer Nadia Pacey, guitarist Ben Webb and bassist Benjamin Nelson, Deux Trois is a 

three-piece band. “[We’re] light, dark, cute and sexy,” Webb said in an interview with The Journal.

“We can be aggressive in our stage performance, but there’s a lot of tenderness there,” Pacey said. “It’s mostly dark and dynamic. It’s emo adjacent.”  

Deux Trois accomplishes that balance in their album Health.The album—which debuted in June—jumps between powerful, hectic instrumentals like “Salt” while still managing to drift into softer and slower tunes like “Blur.” 

“Don’t give me honey, syrup or sugar, baby / Gimme [sic] your salt,” Pacey croons on “Salt.”  The tune refuses the sweetness often associated with romance, asking for bitterness instead. 

The album follows this theme: unrequited love ballad “Dave,” straddles the sexual desire in “Caves in My Cheeks” and creates a raw, emotional honesty for the band. 

Pacey grew up in Kingston, playing in bands and developing her craft. Her aversion to traditional romance in her personal relationships strengthened her approach to songwriting. 

She spent years writing the songs on Health alone in her bedroom, which isn’t the most fostering environment for upbeat poppy love songs. 

This was before she finally joined forces with Nelson and Webb. Together, they transformed electronic beats into rock music.

“I knew when I had written them that they were made for a full band,” Pacey said. “They were not supposed to be just electronic music I made by myself.”

While the band has had success on campus, they reach beyond the student audience to those at local Kingston bars, and more recently at the Wolfe Island Music Festival.  

For Pacey, the appeal is simple: “everyone comes and they scream” at a Deux Troix show.

The group’s undeniable energy took over The Brooklyn on Aug. 30 when they released their new merchandise for the Health EP. 

The product is an entirely recyclable lyric booklet and notebook featuring original artwork by Ben Nelson.  

The release party featured a vendor-style night market where other Kingston locals sold art prints and sculpted figures while the audience shopped and danced freely to Pacey’s softer take on a heavy metal death growl, complemented by her signature stomping and smashing on the drums.

Off stage, Deux Trois is supporting environmental sustainability in their merchandise production while also revamping the local music scene. They invited Kingston artists to join their event to demonstrate how creators can be versatile in their work.

Pacey said she would love to see Kingston artists support each other in similar ways and even follow in her footsteps by hosting more collective events. 

Deux Trois will be touring around Ontario this fall, and are planning a trip to New York City to perform at the Rockwood Music Hall.

“That’s my ambition, to rely on music as my main source of income for the rest of my life,” Pacey said. “If I can do that, I will have succeeded. That’s the dream. But you need to be able to trudge. You need to work. I think we’ve shown each other that we’re completely willing to do that for the dream.”