Shoulder 7"

Shoulder was a severely under-appreciated (both then and now) four piece from Ontario, Canada. They played a brand of melodic hardcore with sung vocals and with what many people would consider to be "emo" leanings, similar to a lot of stuff that was coming from the mid-western part of the United States around that time. I'm pretty sure these two songs make up the last released output from Shoulder, but I can't remember if the split 7" with Morning Again on Moo Cow came out before or after this ep. "Body" is probably my favorite Shoulder song, although "Flower Drum Song" from the above-mentioned split gives it a serious run for it's money.

This was a split released between Conquer The World and Shoulder's guitarist's label, Rhythm Of Sickness. The songs included here were recorded at Signal To Noise in Toronto with Rob Sanzo, who recorded buttloads of awesome bands you should probably be listening to, including Grade and New Day Rising. I'm pretty sure wacky French Canadian prog-metal heroes Voivod recorded some stuff here, as well.

The 7" presented here came out in 1996 and is quite good, so that's probably all you need to know. I never got to see these dudes play, and I can't recall hearing about them coming through my area because I would not have missed them*. Still can't believe it's been +/- 20 years since all of these ridiculously awesome records were released. The time really seems to fly once you start getting older.

CTW-017 / ROS-02

-I will bend until I'm broken-

Tracklist:
1) Kindling
2) Body


* This may or may not actually be true. I remember missing Farside and Nomeansno shows here in Philadelphia because I'd made the decision to not miss work instead of going to see said bands. Apparently there was a point in my life when waiting tables took precedence over hardcore, and I'm an asshole. My friend Sean still reminds me of this fact every so often, and there was a Nomeansno reference there too, did you catch it?