barn burner + exclaim

Barn Burner Bangers By Sam Sutherland Holy shit. Rock'n'roll is awesome, right? Montreal's Barn Burner know this and Bangers is the proof. Like Torche, minus the drone, plus Black Flag, Barn Burner craft catchy, heavy songs that play like Cheap Trick's long-lost stab at punk rock credibility. "Holy Smokes" opens the proceedings with a bang, wasting no time in getting down to total guitar-shredding business, while songs like "The Long Arm Of The Law" drive forward with more hardcore energy and "whoa oh" action than classic rock aggression. All signs point to Barn Burner having a pretty fierce dedication to partying (check out "Beer Today, Bong Tomorrow"), and Bangers is the ideal soundtrack to the kind of Sabbath-drenched rager that like-minded folks will feel right at home at. (New Romance For Kids)

Check out Barn Burner on their Exclaim tour blog

EXCLAIM

Barn Burner
Bangers
By Keith Carman



Forming a strong union between the directness of boogie metal with intimations towards '70s fuzz, à la Thin Lizzy, yet updated and with vocal sensibilities that recall Vancouver's Darkest Of The Hillside Thickets, Montreal's Barn Burner accomplish much with the wonky and wanky, yet wonderful, Bangers. Ranging in attack from laidback shuffles to combative grit, there's a touch of everything, creating a unique meeting ground between groove metal and punk rock'n'roll. All of it's accented by the crisp production of producer/engineer Adrian Popovich (Tricky Woo, Sam Roberts, the Dears, Sebastian Grainger), resulting in an album that features the warmth and familiar undertones of Sometimes I Cry yet blazes with the fury of Leviathan. (New Romance For Kids)

the Stolen Minks RULE

I love the Stolen Minks, not only do they play loads of shows, write great songs but they also do shit like this :

http://thestolenminks.exclaim.ca/

Very, very entertaining tour blog.

Black Ships - Exclaim

Black Ships - Omens
By Sam Sutherland

With Cursed gone (for now?) from our national hardcore scene, there’s a big, gaping hole where our love for crushingly heavy riffs and speedy breakdowns used to be. Black Ships, a group of dirty punks from Montreal, might be ready to fill that void, as Omens, their first full-length release, can attest to. Opening with “No Eulogy,” the band make good on the promise of an earlier CD-R release and their Low EP, blasting out a slow explosion of guitars that build over a tom-heavy drum beat. Vocals here are run through some very Colohan-esque distortion, and that’s not a bad thing — this shit sounds heavy as fuck. By the time “The Flaws in Self-Help” kicks in, a brutal speed-fest that recalls Coliseum’s Goddamage, Black Ships have already proven themselves adept at covering a wide array of dynamics and tempos, elevating Omens above second-rate Entombed clones. As well, there’s sonic space on this record that isn’t always filled by a wall of crashing noise. From the lone guitar break of “Liars are a Dying Breed” to the calculated sludge of “Pestilence,” Black Ships are powerful, loud and, most importantly, original.

Did you have to approach Omens in a different way than you had tackled recording in the past, knowing you were making a full-length?
Drummer Taylor: With Omens, the recording process differed naturally due to the amount of care that we put into this album. First, we took our time choosing the right person to record this album. We also gave ourselves more time than we probably needed in the studio because we wanted to avoid the time constraints that existed in our past efforts. Finally, our good friend Julien Brousseau engineered the album and it was helpful to have an honest opinion from outside of the band in order for us to address all the subtle issues in the songs that we would have otherwise ignored.

It seems like more and more punk and hardcore bands are relying on MySpace to promote their music. You guys are currently touring like crazy. Is this a lost art?
Obviously it is easier for people to sit at home and run their bands from behind a computer but we would like to think that active bands still need to tour. We have always sold more of our music on tour than on some internet store. Also, heavy music always translates better live. We would much rather have tour dates under our belt than song plays on MySpace. (New Romance For Kids)

Stolen Minks tour blog on Exclaim.ca

Press (Black Ships) // Bang Bang / Montreal Mirror / Exclaim (UPDATED)

Black Ships (Updated * new)
Low
By Sam Sutherland

After a well-received CD-R release on Mon Oeil Records, Montreal’s Black Ships have unleashed a beast of an EP on the world with Low. With all the power of Tragedy’s first record or Coliseum’s Goddamage, these four songs meld brutally heavy d-beat with epically apocalyptic guitars, forging some powerfully melodic instrumental passages for vocalist Jamie Thomas to tear to shreds with his appropriately brutal screams. Finding some range in what can be a somewhat limited sonic scope, Black Ships move seamlessly from lightning-fast punk rock to sludgy metal in songs like “Lowest of the Low,” likely the strongest track here. Fans of Cursed or the aforementioned bands should flip for this. (New Romance For Kids)



Black Ships
LOW
MIRROR

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

The last release from Montreal’s brutal blasters the Black Ships, in 2006, had me running around waking the neighbours and kissing babies, but with only six songs on the EP, I was hardly satiated. If you weren’t nimble enough to pick up this slab of heaviness at the time, don’t bother trying to find it now, it’s long out of print. This week, these crusty hardcore hellions release the follow-up Low in less limited quantities, but further the frustration with only four songs this time around. In this case, though, size doesn’t matter. They destroy on all glorious 16 minutes here. Lovingly put out by local label New Romance for Kids, the Black Ships’ Refused/Entombed onslaught is out for blood. If you dig brutal hardcore or metal that isn’t afraid to fire from the gut, this is essential listening. If you weren’t hip enough to catch their record release a couple of weeks back, keep your peepers here for their upcoming show at new hotspot Black Dot.


Bang Bang
11 avril 2008
Black Ships : Low
Alexis Charlebois-Laurin

New Romance For Kids

Ayant déjà la réputation d’être un des groupes les plus loud en show de toute la scène punk/hardcore de Montréal, le groupe nous envoie son premier EP «officiel» après un CD-R sur le label Mon Œil. Un EP qui va certainement entretenir la rumeur. Se situant dans la lignée de Tragedy, From Ashes Rise, Cobra Noir, The Black Hand, la formation nous sert un bon d-beat rock et bien sale avec une touche de mélodie bien placée. En seulement quatre chansons, le groupe réussit vraiment à nous prouver de quoi il est capable et on a hâte d’entendre la suite. J’espère qu’elle ne se fera pas trop attendre et qu’il va battre le fer pendant qu’il est chaud. Je suis pas trop certain mais j’ai comme une grosse impression que ce groupe est composé d’ex-plein d’affaires parce que dans le style, c’est vraiment très bon et bien exécuté. La voie caverneuse fitte à merveille, les guitares mélodiques, tout en étant sales et pesantes, ne pourrait mieux sonner et chaque coup de drum s’abat comme un coup de hache. «The lowest of the low, the cursed of the cursed, the darkest of the darkest night.» C’est-tu pas assez d-beat à votre goût comme paroles ça, mes amis? Moi j’ai adoré. (ACL)
www.myspace.com/blackships

HiFi Handgrenades Exclaim tv. pt.22

4/9/2008 While simultaneously trying to finish a new setlist for the night's show (opening for Foo Fighters and Against Me!, which probably isn't the easiest gig in the world), Detroit's HiFi Handgrenades talk about playing two shows a night and starting PA fires at at least one of them.

HiFiHandgrenades: A Real Interview
http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=120&csid2=988&fid1=30757

HiFi Handgrenades vs. Do Dump Date
http://www.exclaim.ca/articles/generalarticlesynopsfullart.aspx?csid1=120&csid2=988&fid1=30720

the Discord of a Forgotten Sketch / EXCLAIM interview

The Discord of a Forgotten Sketch




By Sam Sutherland



Since releasing the spastic blast of noise that was the band’s self-titled debut EP, the Discord of a Forgotten Sketch have gotten weird. Their full-length follow-up wasn’t the same Daughters-esque cluster fuck of tightly wound songs but a looser collection of alternating heavy and jazzy compositions that featured some of the most bizarre vocal performances ever committed to tape by a band generally considered to be “hardcore.” Now, it appears that Discord are preparing for an even greater left turn as they enter the studio to produce an improvised free jazz record before embarking upon a tour. Wholly uninterested in trends in the current hardcore scene, Discord certainly aren’t worried about winning over any new camo short-ed fans, but just who will follow the band into the sonic unknown remains to be seen.



The last time you and I spoke you were just about to put out your last full-length. What’s been happening since then?

Drummer Julien Paradis: We didn’t practice a lot because we didn’t have much time. We only practiced when we played shows. Then we tried to book a tour and Exclaim! came and offered us a chance to do the Aggressive Tendencies tour, which is perfect. So now we’re going to release a new EP, an experimental free jazz one [with] less vocals. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard Black Flag’s The Process of Weeding Out?



Yeah.

Yeah? It’s our biggest influence for the new EP. It’s going to be very improvisational. We’re going to record that in three weeks and it will be released in time for the tour in November. We didn’t really do a lot of things since we talked.



What was the reception to the last record like?

Because the recording is very weird, many people didn’t like it at first but I’m very proud. It seems like the kids liked it less but we managed to reach some new fans that liked it a lot more, some old-man jazz fans, less hardcore kids. It’s very cool to see people wearing shirts and ties at our shows. It’s another kind of fan and I’m very proud of that. I think, in the media, the CD was reviewed very well. It’s pretty cool.



Has your audience really been shifting?

Yeah, it’s not the same. At shows, it’s not the same. It’s just not the same vibe. It’s cool to have a lot of different people come to shows and not just hardcore kids.



Do you think you’re going to find yourself even further a field of those hardcore kids with the new EP?

Yeah, I think we’re going to reach more musicians. It’s going to be jazz, but noise jazz. It’s going to be weird, and noisy, and free jazz, and our style, but I don’t know if it’s going to have many vocals. I think the people who are going to enjoy it are going to be real jazz or experimental fans. I don’t know how it’s going to work for the future. With our first CD, it was kids who liked the big breakdowns and the screaming.



You mentioned there not being a lot of vocals, so what’s Simon [Herbert, vocalist] doing?

He’s going to do some vocals, but more like an instrument. We didn’t write lyrics at all for this CD. He’s going to do that “ahhhhhh” stuff in the background. We’ll see what happens when we get in the studio. I think it’s going to be great and I’m excited to hear what he’s going to do. Simon will always be in the band but he has a new role.



Does he play any instruments?


We’ve got a keyboard and I think we’ll use it for the CD. I think we’ll bring it to shows on the tour to make some extra noise. Simon’s going to sing but more like an instrument — less lyrics, more sounds from his mouth.



What are the shows going to be like? You’re going on tour with a lot more structure-based metal and hardcore bands. Are you going to play free jazz stuff or stuff from your old records?

We’re going to play mostly songs off our last LP and one or two songs from our first EP. We will not play free jazz for this tour because the kids who will be at these shows will not be fans. We want people to like us. We only have 30 minutes, so we can’t play a lot of songs. Our songs are pretty long. It’s going to be old material.



When you’re doing shows around Montreal now are you doing more experimental stuff?

We basically play old stuff but we try to incorporate experimental stuff. We have to see how the shows are and see how the vibe is.



Where did the idea come from to just go in and produce a free jazz record?

We’ve had the idea for a long time but we didn’t have the resources. We didn’t have the money or the time to practice or rent a studio. And now Jason from New Romance For Kids said it was cool and that he would release it. It was perfect. We’re going to try that. With the upcoming tour, it’s good motivation to release something. For the tour we’d like to have new merch and new stuff for sale because it’s pretty huge. We wanted a new CD and we didn’t have time to make new songs, new real Discord songs, so we’re going to be releasing the free thing.



Do you think after this you’ll want to take time to go back and write new, proper songs or is this the direction the band’s going to head in?

I think it’s going to be a mix of the old songs and the new free jazz songs. Maybe for the next LP, I don’t know when, it’s going to be jazzier, but real songs that we’re really going to work on. And then make the old songs a little more like the kind of music we want to play.