04 February 2019

CONCRETE ASYLUM


Keeping track of the bands popping up from Nova Scotia in the late '00s was like the most frustrating game of Whack-A-Mole, a game that seemed impossible to win. If you looked closely, it seemed like one or two dudes were at the nucleus of everything (I think Cody Cross is in five of the six bands featured on the NS side of this regional comp), but it was the shockingly consistent level of quality that was truly stunning - there weren't just a lot of bands, there were a lot of great bands. CONCRETE ASYLUM's particular approach to chaos holds up up especially well (I mean, it's only six years old at this point, but you get my drift) - brutally fast and manically constructed hardcore with stop/starts and nonsensical guitar leads and effects that take the wall of white noise to endless and dizzying realms. Quirky lightning speed pogomincecore (I made that up) tracks underneath the insanity, but I need to be clear that the insanity itself is the focus here. Like NERVESKADE maybe,  but just.....more. More speed, more drugs, more noise, more chaos. Just one EP and two demos from these kids (the first demo is here, in both presented and intended forms), but that's kinda how Nova Scotia seemed to roll. 

Can we talk about that cover art? No? OK, maybe a different time, because......wow.





1 comment:

Anonymous said...

absolutely one of the best band logos in canadian punk history!