CanadianWasteland Archives: Hourglass - Discography (1995-1997)

Hourglass was a chaotic hardcore band from Buffalo, New York who were active for a brief few years in the late 90s and have since reformed to release a reunion album as well as a discography. Their releases consist of a demo tape, a self-titled 7", a split 12" with New Day Rising, all from the 1990s, and then in the past few years, a discography LP and a brand new album

Hourglass opted out of the classic New York hardcore style and instead went for a much more chaotic, discordant sound. Gerald Thomas's high pitched vocals are screamed jarringly over a mess of intense noise from the rest of the band. I love how the guitarists pitch up instead of down as the songs progress; it creates this intense anxious feeling to their music that contrasts with the low and breakdown heavy hardcore that their peers in the NYHC scene were creating at the time. Their sound is interesting because you can still hear the classic hardcore influence in their music, especially in the instrumentals, but there is also clear inspiration from more emotional hardcore bands like Still Life or even Reversal Of Man.

In my opinion they really hit their peak with their self-titled 7" which was released in 1997. The 7" has a perfect balance of straightforward, heavy hardcore and chaotic, raging, emotional hardcore dripping with passion and anger.

Unfortunately we don't have high quality scans for Hourglass's releases so as always if anyone can help us out with that we'd appreciate it!