Acrid was a grindcore/doom band from Mississauga, Ontario. The band toured consistantly across the US and Canada in the mid-90s, leaving behind two splits and a CD compiling their demo session and last session. Acrid's sound was a true amalgamation of hardcore and metal influences from across the board, mixing blistering grind with elements of emocore, sludge, doom and black metal. Dave from New Day Rising and Spread The Disease was a founding member of the band and his presence and influence can be heard across Acrid's discography.
Acrid is probably most well known from their appearance on the sawblade shaped split with Hamilton's Left For Dead. The four tracks on this split might be my favourite of their work, jeering from spastic grind to goovy sludge riffs in the blink of an eye.
Index For Potential Suicide was a emo-violence band from Charleston, South Carolina. In their brief lifespan Index put out one LP, a 7", a demo and a split with Usurp Synapse. The band had a distinctly metalcore influenced flavour of emo-violence that mixed the sounds of South Carolina heavy-hardcore bands like Prevail and Rinse with the chaos of bands like Hassan I Sabbah and Reversal Of Man. Despite their unique sound and prevalence within the scene at the time, I hear Index referenced a lot less than the aforementioned bands, which is a shame because they rip just as hard.
Another thing that set Index apart from the rest of the scene at the time was their pre-eminent use of synthesizers to create a foreboding, noise influenced atmosphere in their songs. A lot of early 2000s bands in the white-belt scene would go on to use synth to similar or alternatively cheesier effect, so it leaves me to wonder how much of an influence Index had on this development.
Lae-Tseu was an emocore and later post-punk band from Montreal, Quebec. The band was a mainstay in the Montreal scene and played shows with bands like The Plan, Shotmaker, Blake, Rockets Red Glare, Daddy's Hands, Spengler and Kiss Me Deadly. Lae-Tseu had two distinct phases, one in the late 90s and one in the early 00s. The tastefully lo-fi 1998 demo has a pretty impassioned and technical emo/hardcore flavour, with some spoken word and sing-song choruses à la Cap'n Jazz; I could maybe even compare them to the French band Petit Printemps at this stage. The original vocalist Adam left the band after recording this material.
(Dave from Daddy's Hands/Breakwater playing with Lae-Tseu at Barfly in Montreal)
In the early 00s, Lae-Tseu shared a practice space with Daddy's Hands and that influence can definitely be heard on the 2001/2002 demos. I'm assuming the song "Emily's Last Dance" refers to Emily from Daddy's Hands (RIP). The band at this stage had a more mature and varied sound, with some gothish influence a la Crimson Curse, boy/girl vocals, and keyboards/sax thrown in.
Lae-Tseu seem to be pretty overlooked in the grand scheme of Canadian emo-adjacent stuff, but they carved out a niche for themselves and made some pretty interesting songs. It's always cool to hear emo-esque stuff that's come out of the scene in Montreal, especially since most of the bands I've posted so far from Quebec are emocrusty outfits.
