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.
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.
Kepler was a slowcore/indie-rock band from Ottawa, Ontario. I'm branching out a bit with these guys but they were definitely connected to the Ontario "scene" back in the day, being on Spectra Sonic and Troubleman records and sharing members with the post-hardcore band Weights and Measures, that being said they weren't a hardcore band. Kepler was and remains to be one of the more underrated slowcore bands to come out of Canada (and in general).
The band originally started out with a very very slow slowcore sound reminiscent of bands like Codeine, Tram and Blue Tile Lounge; over time Kepler really matured and found their niche, a blend of indie rock and slowcore that worked exceptionally well for them. The albums Fuck Fight Fail and Missionless Days are definitely my favourite from them, with pensive lyrics, catchy guitar work and the occasional pedal steel. I've known about Kepler for a long time now, they aren't that hard to come by in the various dollar bins scattered across Canada's landscape but I have really emotionally connected with them lately and I can't recommend them enough.
Fun fact: Kepler's guitarist Jeremy Gara went on to play drums for Arcade Fire
The Suicide Boys was a screamo band from Calgary, Alberta. I’ll start by acknowledging that some parts of the band’s outward appearance haven’t aged especially well, including the name, along with a handful of edgy song titles that where customary at the time. Sound-wise, TSB played a rough-around-the-edges, jagged mix of loud-quiet screamo and metallic hardcore, pulling clear influence from bands like Converge and Coalesce, with some grittier, crust-leaning influences thrown in the mix. The recordings are pretty damn raw; chaotic tempo shifts, puke-your-guts-out vocals and a bit more heart than polish. I think I prefer the EP tracks to the LP, they have some more going on and the band sounds a lot tighter. While TSB honestly might not be my personal favourite band from the Calgary scene, I still think they are worth putting out there and they have some pretty good moments on their releases.
I’m close to tracking down one of their CDs and will update this post with a proper rip and scans sooner than later. If anyone has live video of the band, feel free to reach out, i'd love to share it!
