If Tom Fun’s debut is any indication, Toronto’s “group hug” sound has finally infected the Maritimes. But the multi-member band, rife with trilling brass and rivets of violin, ain’t drinking lover’s spit, just tequila. Heavy on the n’er-do-well attitude, the gasoline-voiced Johnny Turbo is all highwayman mystique, with full-throttle guitars and matador-styled brass stings, while their lyrics cover such topics as betting it all at the track, hiding 15 pounds of coke in your pickup truck and hanging a man with a rattlesnake. “Tar Pond Tango” is great, shlocky enjoyment — featuring a slinky bass solo, mandolins that stomp out aggression in wicked little shakes and Tom Waits growling inspired by a trucker’s slog on caffeine pills. Only on “Bottom of the River,” featuring the entire orchestra in hushed whispers about time measured in sunken pebbles, do Tom Fun feel the warmth of a T.O. huddle, instead of a back seat with the engine running on empty.

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