Say No More

Say No More was a band that anyone could have easily passed by. But I hope to change that. Louis-Pierre Parenteau and his brother Marc-Olivier formed the band in 2002 after the first Shark Attack 7″ came out, and they became influenced with Negative Approach and Agnostic Front. Louis was originally on drums with his brother playing guitar, but when a few songs were composed, they recruited Marc-Olivier Dion on drums and and Jean-Francois Landry on bass. They chose the band name from a song by Faith (the Dischord Records band). They recorded their first demo in 2002. This was followed by their first show on July 7th with The Attack,  If Hope Dies and Bury Your Dead. The band continued to play shows on a regular basis through out the next year and a half, and composing new songs, but nothing was recorded.

During this time, fellow friends of the band would form “Mental Crew Canada” with Louis as the mascot. These hard-core fans would go to as many Mental shows as possible. This would be how they came in contact with Greg Willmott who ran Lockin’ Out Records; the label who proposed to release anything the band was willing to get together. This could have been an EP considering the amount of material they had written at the time, but the band chose to send in songs for a compilation that Greg was putting together instead, hoping to do the EP later. They went down to Boston’s suburbs to record two songs with Eric Lomon (of Crunch Time) at Lomon Studios. In the end, only one song from each of the bands was used for the compilation, and “Smog” would be chosen. The other song remains unreleased. By the end of 2003, Louis had moved away and it was difficult to rehearse on a regular basis. Most of the jams took place right before shows and would not be very creative. They played their final show on December 13th, 2003, and though they were still somewhat “active” until early 2004, the band was over by the time “Sweet Vision” came out in February. A few years later, Omegas were putting together a mix tape and used the song “Hey Teacher” from their demo on the “Joy Boy Mix”.

Greg Willmott apparently still has the second unused song, but has been ignoring my attempts to contact him for too long, so I gave up and posted this discography 1 song short. If you’re ever able to get it, please post a comment here!

Say No More incomplete Discography

The Asexuals

The Asexuals were a Montreal punk band that started in 1983. They went on to release several records but due to personal bias were are just going to talk about their good stuff. The original line up was John Kaster, Sean Friesen, T.J. Collins and Paul Remington. They released an EP entitled Featuring: The Asexuals in 1984. The next year they put out what most would say is their best record – Be What You Want – on Pysche Industries (originally on First Strike Records who didn’t what to repress it). Later in 1985 they released another LP called Contemporary World. They toured extensively in support of this record inclusing many shows in the US. After that, John Kaster quit and formed The Doughboys. And that’s where we are gonna leave it because even though the band went on the release several more records, they were not very good.

So let’s go back and talk about the Be What You Want LP. Much of my early experience with punk was hearing this record on the local college station so it has been one of my favorites ever since. I did get to see the band in the early 90′s, far passed their prime and it was quite disappointing. The only time the crowd reacted was when they played the title track off Be What You Want. One other interesting note about this LP was that the title track extolled the virtues of “being what you want” yet in other songs there would be lyrics like “fuck all you longhairs”. Kinda of funny. And the band went on to have long hair of course.

Anyway, the main reason for this post was that the band will be playing a reunion show in Toronto, March 4th & 5th @ The Bovine Sex Club. All original members and just playing Be What You Want. Needless to say, I am excited! Check out some mp3′s and if you like what you hear…check out the show!

Asexuals EP, Be What You Want & Contemporary World mp3s

Asexuals Myspace Page

One Eyed God Prophecy

I don’t know what took me so long to get this post started… One Eyed God Prophecy was one of the most influential screamo/grindcore/crusty emo bands from Canada, and are still one of the most respected. And they are definitely the ones that put Sherbrooke on the map.

This five-piece formed in 1995 and practiced in guitarist Ugo Desgreniers’ shed, where they would also play their first shows. Dom Poulin was on vocals, Seb Philbert on guitar, Alex Bibeau on bass and J-P Dionne rounded up the band. The idea of the band was very simple; to have fun as a band of friends and stay true to their emotions and feelings. The band felt most at home playing small club shows where they could feel part of the audience. Their influences would come from Rorshach, Econochrist, Born Again and of course Canadian mates Union of Uranus, Drift and Shotmaker.

During one of their early practices, their friend Yannick Lorraine came by and after hearing their only three written songs, asked them to put out an LP on his label, The Great American Steak Religion. No doubt due to his label this band has kept a cult status over the yeras. In early 1996, with their full catalog of songs, the LP was released. The original album art was red, black and white (and i’m not sure how many copies of those were made). Since then the album has been repressed in black and white only. To promote this release, Yan helped book an entire tour from coast to coast in Canada and the States. Most of the flyers mentioned they featured ex-members of Union of Uranus, which was only a publicity stint created by Yan to get more people at shows in the states where they were still unknown. The band embarked on tour with their 1976 orange hippie van for a six week summer tour. The tour was a huge success and would prove to be a major influence for bands such as Orchid, and countless late 90′s screamo acts.

After the tour the band got working on some new material, which would unfortunately never be finalized. OEGP broke up after an under two year run. They did everything they had dreamt of doing, and all in a speed up process; Got big too fast, ended too fast. In 2001 a friend of the band, under the one-time record label APC Records, made a home made discography on CD. The sole purpose was to have it for himself on CD, but the demand from his friends ended up being high enough for him to make close to 100 copies. The discography not only contained the seven songs from the LP but also two live sets. The first was taken from a sold out and full packed CFLX Studio show, and the second from Birdhouse. The demand for this discography is still in huge demand to this day, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this album comes back in print someday soon.

One Eyed God Prophecy Discography

The Payback

Tough guy metalcore was all over Quebec in the early to mid 2000s (right after that ended, our whole scene ended). The Payback is another band from that scene and genre that came from Trois-Rivière. And I wasn’t able to find much on this band, it was suggested to me by email. They released their first demo in 2003, followed by a second demo in 2004 and a promo. The only compilation they appeared on was the Quebec Punk Scene Vol. 1 in 2005. Kyril Ducharme went on to play in A Perfect Murder and now Aces & Eights.

The Payback Discography

Forsaken Trust

This is my introduction to Gatineau hardcore. Forsaken Trust was probably the most well known band from there, and Rich Boivin was an important part of local hardcore, putting up shows and festivals with bands from all over North America.

Forsaken Trust formed in July of 2001 with Mario Massie on vocals, Ben Gareau and Chris Lefebvre on guitars, Martin Madore on bass and Rich Boivin on drums. On October 21st, they played their first show and released their first demo. In Novembre Martin who had stopped coming to brand practice was replaced by Mathieu Tessier, who desperately wanted to jam with them. In May 2002 they played their first out of town show, with A Perfect Murder and Radical Attack. The band would play thirteen shows that year. In December their new demo “A New Breath” was released at the Health Fest. Their first ep was recorded in June and July of 2003 at B-Side Studios. Almost directly after, Tessier quit the band and Lefebvre assumed bass duties until Pierre-Luc Grenier came in for a couple months. They played a huge show with Norma Jean, Figure Four and Beloved in late October but it wasn’t until Chris Bonavia would become their bassist in December that they were a full band again. On January 24th 2004 they released their first official ep “Broken Promises”. They would record another demo in the year but would ultimately break up in July. Their final show was at the Gatineau Hardcore Fest.

They played a one time reunion show on March 25th 2005 with Tears from the Sky and Beneath the Massacre. This got them to want to start playing as Forsaken Trust again, and they began writing new material. This however did not work out and their second farewell show occurred on July 30th.

I suggest reading their myspace. It’s got a shit load more info and documenting.

Forsaken Trust Myspace
Forsaken Trust Discography

The Black Hand

I can’t find too much original information on this band. Pretty much this is what half of Ire became. This was a lot more thrash/crust oriented, and its pretty strong.

They first did a cassette demo, which was re-issued by Scorched Earth Policy as the “Pulling Your Strings” vinyl in 2000. They then had a song on the “Seven Deadly Sins” compilation from Hater of God Records. Their final output was their full length “War Monger” on Chainsaw Safety Records (CD) and Scorched Earth Policy (12″).

The Black Hand Discography

In Dying Days

In Dying Days were one of the few bands in Quebec doing the really metallic style of hardcore which was big in Florida. They were often compared to Poison the Well and Morning Again, but personally I would compare them to This Day Forward.

They would record a demo tape in 1998 after forming, with their original vocalist Olivier, and would build up a good following right away. They then switched vocalists and ended up with Mike Doucet. They recorded a second demo “To Forget Yesterday”, and  would come in contact with James Hamilton who was working on his new record label, Re- Define Records. He decided to officially release the demo as their first ep. James decided to press a limited run of a single song from it on tape, to see if the product was marketable. Indeed it was because the ep would come out as the labels’ first output.

The band band was then approached by Good Life Recordings, and would be featured on their VHS “Good Life T.V.” (which had Morning Again and As Friends Rust on it) as well as a compilation, which featured their song “Once Were Warriors”, from their debut ep. They would however sign a contract deal with One Day Savior instead.

The band recorded some demos for their second ep, “Life as a Balancing Act” in 2002, which would be released by ODS. The year after, “After the Fire” would be released on the same label. Both would do really well for the band. They would also appear on the “True Until Death” compilation by United Edge Records.

In Dying Days – EPs

A Death for Every Sin

Keeping on with my posts on Quebec’s hardcore, this is another one from my city of Montreal. This band is part of the local tough guy hardcore, and well, with bands like Until the End being so good, well these bands didn’t do so well across the border. They formed in 1999, and released a 3 song demo tape. Two of these songs were then added to four new songs, and it was released as their debut ep “God’s Final Descent” on Sounds of Revolution/13th Day Recordings.

They then signed with Alveran Records to release their full length “In a Time Where Hope is Lost”. The band then toured extensively throughout Europe. In early 2003 they were working on an ep which was to be released also on Alveran in the spring, but it never saw the day because they broke up in April 2003. If anyone has those recordings id love to hear them. After that the same members did Final Word, but I’m not sure if the ep they released was the one written as ADFES.

A Death for Every Sin – Discography

Ire

And here it finally is. The first post about a Québec band. I’m really pumped about this band, even if I only heard of them recently, thanks to a recommendation from Jav van Huss. This band is a bit hard to classify. I’ve read people call it emo (Yannick Lorraine’s description from a 1996 review of the band, and while maybe back in 1994, 1995 the music could could of been considered part of the emo scene), mathcore (it definitely has math parts in its later material), and plain old metallic hardcore. Personally I left it as hardcore because in entirety, that’s what it is. However it has elements of sludge and extremely atmospheric moments (What Seed, What Root? will give you that immediate reflection, as well as an immediate love for the band).

The band formed in February of 1994, apparently from members of Foreground (a band which I still couldn’t find information on). The band likely recorded some demos, but I haven’t the chance to find any yet. The band’s first release was their self-titled 7″ on Schema Records in 1996. It was soon followed by their split with Seized which was co-released by Spineless Records and Fetus Records. Both of these were compiled into “Adversity Into Triumph” on Ellington Records.

After that they released “I Discern an Overtone of Tragedy in Your Voice” on The Mountain Cooperative. They were getting more mathcore by this time. The band broke up in 1999, and posthumously released their final album “What Seed, What Root?” on CrimethInc Records/Scorched Earth Policy.

I talked to Radwan about the band, and he told me everything the band ever recorded was released. So what you’re getting here is their total discography. No chance of a reunion, despite the new trend.

Ire Discography