Structure Records was a short lived record label operated out of Hamilton, Ontario, by two notorious hardcore personalities; Jeff Beckman and Chris Logan, two members of Chokehold. They put out three releases and abruptly ended but those...
Neighbourhood Watch were from Fredericton, New Brunswick and existed between 1985 and 1988. They released a 7″ EP called Death At The Hands Of Time on Real World Records based in Durham, UK. There were a few other bands with the same...
The Chitz were a punk/hardcore band from Halifax, Nova Scotia and were around from 1994-1998. Drawing influence from a wide range of bands such as The Exploited, Agnostic Front and even Ramones-y pop punk, the band released an LP, split LP, 2...
This was a great little record label based in Campbellville, Ontario in the mid 90’s to early 2000’s. They were known principally for giving Grade their debut release, as a split with Believe (later repressed as the split with...
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...
This bio was sent to me exclusively for this blog by band founder Paul Schedlich. I doubt I could have written a better one on this fantastic midwest emo band from Pickering, Ontario. I don’t find many Canadian bands with this specific...
Guilt Parade were a punk hardcore band from Fredericton, New Brunswick from the mid 80’s. They self released 2 demo tapes and then moved to Toronto where they put out an LP on Fringe Records. An often overlooked band when it comes to...
Marc Stonestreet, Tyler Smith and Stephen McIntyre had all been friends since elementary school. In 1994 while they were in ninth grade, they got together with their first instruments and started learning how to play. Marc actually got...
Crisis of Faith was notorious for their short association with Chokehold, but they were really an entire band apart, with completely different beliefs. Guitarist Adam Payne and drummer Paul Abrash formed the band in early 1990 as a “side...
Dirge was an early to mid-90s metalcore band from Ontario, which eventually became Day of Mourning. At first they were almost what you now call nu-metal, though a lot heavier. But their later material became just like DOM. Dirge formed in 1994...
Two Line Filler (or 2 Line Filler) was one of the best appreciated and most successful emo bands to come out of Canada in the 90s. And everything they did was amazing! Every release was a masterpiece. I wouldn’t say this band...
Editor’s note: this interview was originally conducted on October 10th of 2010 (with modifications provided on November 1st of 2010) for the Francophone metal website WTF Metal Music, and was eventually published on November 1st of...
Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on October 13th 2010 for The Inarguable webzine. We have decided to repost it here for archival purposes and because it is truly an amazing read. -What are the origins of Vision Éternel? Vision...
These guys were amazing! I always found they were the equivalency to Morning Again in Canada. Unfortunately they were always evolving and changing members which were slowing them down and preventing them from getting as big as they should of...
Confine formed in early 1997 as one of southern Ontario’s (Oakville) most aggressive and chaotic hardcore (without being screamo). The original line up was Rob Blakely on vocals, Neil Hamilton and Gordie Ball on guitars, Mike Earp on bass...
After Chokehold had broken up, Chris Logan, Matt Beckman and Josh Fletcher continued to rehearse together. Influenced by such bands as Drive Like Jehu and Hoover, but in a more straight hardcore fashion. They named themselves SeventyEightDays...
Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on September 21st 2010 for Abridged Pause Recordings Blog. We have decided to repost it here for archival purposes and because it is truly an amazing watch. Share...
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...
Editor’s note: This interview was conducted with Will McEvilly of Castevet (CSTVT) in May of 2010. It was originally published on Sadness By Name, which was merged with Abridged Pause Blog in 2013. -Alright so Castevet started when...
Spread the Disease was an extremely black metal influenced metalcore band, a genre that later became known as noisecore. They were fierce and unholy without being corny like most black metal acts of the 90s. This band formed out of Karenza...
Karenza was formed in late 1996 by Dave Buschemeyer (Bushman) on guitar and Trevor Dykstra (T-Bone) on bass after leaving behind the broken up New Day Rising (they would reform). The initial line up also featured Dave Johnston on drums, and Stu...
New Day Rising was huge. And I think that there are still a bunch of people getting into them these days. Even if the band has been broken up for over a decade, a bunch of blogs still talk about them and Eulogy Recordings still manage to profit...
This label was very special, so I did a special type of interview. It was more in the sense of a conversation with Chris Iler. It was great to do and the guy is a dictionary of knowledge of the whole Canadian scene. This label really helped a...
Eliot Rosewater was a short lived band from Mississauga that was only around from December 1995 to October 1997, though they managed to record a great deal of material, and apparently had written over 50 songs. It featured Ian McPhedran on bass...
Editor’s Note: This interview was conducted on March 18th 2010 for Sadness By Name magazine. We have decided to repost it here for archival purposes and because it is truly an amazing read. -Hello Alex, can you introduce yourself and let...
Ache Hour Credo is what came between M Blanket and Breakwater (for Dave Wenger at least). It was fairly short lived, of about 1994 to 1996. Some say that the first unofficial song from this band was the last M Blanket song recorded, “Kid...
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...
This was originally the very first post. It has since been edited, ameliorated and reposted, with much more material in the download link (thanks to Ryan Moon and Doug MacGregor for all the help). So I am proud to present one of my absolute...
This Halifax band was formed in October of 2000. They released a 3 song demo and a 4 song CD-ep in their short career, before disbanding in March of 2002. Drawing influence from bands such as Grade and Boysetsfire (and also covering both those...
Not many people may remember this label, but this about to change after you read this fantastic interview with Stephen Perry (who sang in One Blood and Countdown to Oblivion). He still has copies left of the Mexican Power Authority album...
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...
Shiner was the first band to be released on the greatly important B.C. label Slow to Burn Records. Dave Brown who ran the label played in the band. This was B.C. emo in the early 90s and it was damn good. A lot more like the mid-west emo that...
I can’t find much to say on Benchwarmer. They were from Victoria, BC and featured Paul Block who would go on to do great things in Render Useless. Not that Benchwarmer is bad in anyway. It’s great, as you can assume since they were...
She Kills was a metal hardcore band from Halifax, Nova Scotia that was formed in the summer of 2003 after the break up of the bands Flesh Made To Suffer and Tomorrows Demise. The band played a style of metal and hardcore that now has been...
Oakville had so many good bands, and The Fullblast is one of the few punk rock bands that I really like even if I’m not fan of the genre. Maybe it’s for the simple fact that Gordie Ball was in it. Their first release was the pretty...
This is my lucky first find of Winnipeg’s emo outputs. This band was a sister band to Grace Like Winter, but they were really poppy emo, like later Keepsake. They really weren’t around for long (May 1999 to 2000), and their split...
Endless Fight was formed in 2004 in Winkler, Manitoba (later stapled as a Winnipeg band, not sure if they moved there or only because it was close to Winkler). They had a demo, which i unfortunately never heard. They then self-released their ep...
Editor’s note: This interview was originally published on Sadness By Name back in January of 2010 as “Interview with Garry Brents of Parabstruse”. Garry Brents has been a close collaborator for many years and it was an...
Winter Records was a label formed by Paul Bright (of As We Speak and Shoulder) in 1995. After putting out four releases, the label changed name to Rhythm of Sickness Records, named after lyrics of a Shoulder song. I conducted an interview with...
This Day Forth is my first post about Newfie hardcore. These guys were from St. John’s, and they were really good. Similar to Ignorance Never Settles (stories connect as you will read later). They formed under the name Fallen in August...
Grace Like Winter was one of Winnipeg’s best band, in my opinion. So far i keep being blown away with bands from Manitoba, (a scene which I am still not too familiar with, but seems to be very religiously inclined, not that it would...
This is the second interview in a series of Canadian record labels, and this is one of my all time favorite record labels! Everything released by this dude was amazing! And it definitely stands the test of time! Dan actually has copies left of...
I found it pretty hard to find information on the band, other than the actual releases. It seems they were only around for a year or two, all their releases occurred in 1996.I found them incredibly melodic, and sort of experimental type of emo...
M Blanket was one of the earliest BC emo bands. Sometimes more punk, sometimes some ska thrown in (i know this doesn’t sound to their advantage, but I assure you, you will fall in love with them).I’m not sure why they always...
The Wolfnote doesn’t seem like it much fits in with the bands on this blog, but it totally does! These guys are my first Alberta band on here. Great post-hardcore. These guys were pretty intense. After some home burnt compilation demos...
This is my first post on a band from Manitoba. These guys were from Steinbach. And I love them! They had these incredibly melodic parts on their hardcore, something I can’t seem to pin point in any other band. The band formed in 1997 and...
Burden was Vancouver’s first straight-edge band, and probably one of the first to bring a hint of new school hardcore into the local scene. At the time, there really wasn’t much to brag about in the western Canadian hardcore. All...
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...
I’m trying to expand to other provinces rather quickly. And one band i already knew of from Vancouver was Blue Monday (since Jason Kehoe from Day of Mourning played drums with them). They are very similar to the type of hardcore that...
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...