New Hamilton folk-rock act, The Caretakers, released their debut album “Unfinished Thoughts (and other stories from the songwriter’s den)” steeped in their deep-rooted social and political advocacy. Unfinished Thoughts will help support War Child Canada with a portion of CD and online sales going to the organization. The band has already made a donation of $500 to War Child Canada in anticipation of CD and online sales. The Caretakers emerged from the original hub of Canadian music—Hamilton, Ontario in 2007—although the trio could just as easily have stepped off the stage of Café Wha? in Greenwich Village circa 1964. With folk music at their roots and the cultural grit of a working-class-city upbringing, Jeffrey C. Martin, Lena Montecalvo and Norm Van Bergen fuse rich Peter, Paul and Mary-style harmonies with REM-inspired melodies and swampy ‘70s southern rock grooves. The Caretakers’ primary songwriter is Martin, who over the course of his career has gone from freelance writer to corporate writer to songwriter. A PR/marketing professional and college/university instructor by trade, he became disillusioned with the corporate world and began feeling contempt for what he describes as the “less-than-ethical mainstream public relations profession.” While Martin’s songwriting rips a page from the cold protest movements of the late ‘60s and ‘70s (evoking the dynamic tension between compassion and indifference), his songs are warmly wrapped in melody, metaphor and poetic prose.