Hospital Grade
Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada
Music
Press
What a confounding blend these New Brunswickians lay down. You're never quite sure where they're going, and it ends up being a glorious thing. This record is unpredictable, complex, and catchy. They can be dark, layered and slow, then jumpstart into a driving, hook-laden chorus. One track even has a funky instrumental break. If you need to look at it in terms of superheroes, sometimes they burst onto the scene like Superman, full of spunk and recalling rock'n' roll's glory days gone by. Other times they're like Namor the Submariner, zooming through the murky depths of a sprawling, messy musical ocean. Finally, they retreat to the Bat Cave where they craft introspective, moody sections worthy of the Dark
Knight himself (Batman to the uninitiated). Some of the members of this group used to be in Not Funny Anymore, and they have a following in Canada that they're hoping to bring south. More power to them.
-Dan Laidman
Punk Planet Issue 61, May/June '04 - Punk Planet
It's unlikely that Hospital Grade could have come up with a better album title. Written Axe to Trigger. It's the sort of phrase that jumbles your mind with its subtle incongruity, forcing you to contemplate the relationship (or lack thereof) between its two objects: a non-sequitur, if you will. And if there was ever a musical version of this form of artful logic, it must be found in Hospital Grade, who make it their business to deliver the unexpected. To be sure, there's no traditional verse/bridge/chorus/verse structure apparent anywhere on the album. Rather, the band relies on deft time changes and constantly shifting melodies, crafting each song around a series of DIY-tinged hooks. The climactic "Champion for Sympathy", for instance, includes no less than ten major shifts in song structure. What is so remarkable about Hospital Grade, however, isn't that they can pack each song with a dozen different hooks; it's that they do so seamlessly. The songs are a bit like mini-rock symphonies, each with numerous movements progressing naturally from overture to finale. With their skillful musicianship and imaginative songwriting, Hospital Grade proves that the unexpected doesn't have to be undesirable.
-Melissa Amos - Splendid E-zine
Canada’s Hospital Grade is an early 90’s DC band breathing life up north in 2004. Very post-punk, very Jawbox-sounding and pretty refreshing, a lot of good things have been coming from Canada in these past few years.
Listening to this album takes me right back to the end of my high school days when I finally realized what Fugazi was taking about. I was about to step into the real world (or the sub-real world of college) and try to find how and where I fit. Nearly 10 years later I discovered I’m still not certain.
Hospital Grade means what they say. They seem like they’ll have no problem fighting for what they believe in. Remember when you first heard Pegboy sing "Strong Reaction" and you wondered how punk rock ethos could sound both intimidating and enjoyable? It’s the same boat with these guys. They will yell their hearts out to tell you what they believe in, but the harmonies and music are far from hardcore sounding. Never do they move too fast to be enjoyed. They give you time to take it in and make an attempt to understand what they are saying.
Track 4: "Serial Celebrity," is correct in assuming that I "like what I see, what I hear" in this album. It’s refreshing to hear a band that still stands by a set of strong beliefs and wouldn’t back down before fighting for it.
If you miss Naked Raygun, search out Hospital Grade.
-Bob Ladewig - Lost At Sea Magazine
The Canadian musical explosion just keeps growing, now reaching all the way to the far-off lands of New Brunswick and the musical stylings of Hospital Grade. Fans of both complex math-rock, as well as harder post-punk, will definitely things to their liking on Secrets and Sawdust, the band's latest full length release. Sporting influences as diverse as Joy Division, Wire, and The Minutemen, combined with an uncanny ability to work ear-catching hooks into their athletic musical chops, Secrets and Sawdust would probably make for a great listen through a pair of Sennheiser headphones while enjoying a little plastic baggy of nature's finest. - Instrumental Analysis
This quartet may be from Saint John, but musically they don't have any one home. They roam from heavy to happy, light and then dark, simple to complicated. There's punk at the roots, with energy to spare and somehow the group takes it to heady levels with sonic layers, advanced melodies and intense and intelligent lyrics. You don't know where they will go from song to song, and this unpredictability is part of the plan and the charm. - The Telegraph - Journal
"a nifty little record... With the kind of stop-start mathematical precision that many musicians tend to envy, the group starts the record off with the intense The Sea Will Punish Us before treading into more melodic territory on An Essay In Your Lungs and If I Said Helvetica."
- Ken Kelley - Here Magazine
Coming from a backdrop of a dying industrial town, the band sling lyrics that champion themes of working class struggle. The narrative told in "Walking Papers, Too" take place on a daily basis in dozens upon dozens of towns across the North American Rust Belt.
Musically, the band straddles the line between angular aggressive Fugazi post-punk (the guitars on "The Sea Will Punish Us" are almost classic Fugazi) and more polished Superchunk power pop ("If I Said Helvetica").
- snobsmusic.net
"An engagingly lo-fi mix of post-punk riffs and catchy choruses, the band balance their pop tendencies with an intriguingly mathematical approach similar to Shudder to Think or later era Jawbox. Songs like "Our House Is Still Out There" recall classic Jade Tree and Deep Elm, with delayed guitar and urgent, subtly complex drumming underneath hushed vocals, while "An Essay In Your Lungs" is an unashamed piece of poppy mid-'90s alt-rock. Hopefully Secrets and Sawdust won't remain a secret for long."
- Sam Sutherland, Exclaim! - Exclaim!
"[Hospital Grade] combines some Maritime flavour with the technical sounds of a band like Sylvie, and then it adds the sweet longing of The Weakerthans.
"
- Adam Bowie, The Daily Gleaner - The Daily Gleaner
"...atonal grooviness reminiscent of Talking Heads and Joy Division...restless structural mathematics that bring to mind XTC...Black Flag-like ferocity...even some good old fashioned pop hooks and melodies. Hospital Grade evokes but doesn't mimic any of the above." - Here Magazine
Discography
Secrets & Sawdust CD (2008) (BBQ)
Written Axe To Trigger CD (2004) (URININE Records)
Scrap Is The Metal, Metal Is The Weapon EP (2003)(self - released)
Photos
Bio
Only a blue-collar town like Saint John could produce a band like Hospital Grade. The city is an odd mix of pollution, industry, seaport, technology and art. It’s got a lot of character; a lot of confusing, one-way streets; a lot of weathered, interesting stone and brick buildings. There are giant cranes looming over the city’s downtown core from the port terminals, like great red robots from some dreary apocalyptic dream.
The city is constantly trying to reinvent itself, and in doing so, every few years they blow something up; the great empty corpse of an old world General Hospital, maybe a couple of the foreboding crane sentries by the harbor. They might flatten a few of the city’s ancient and wonderful features in order to build a low, flat box or two to cram with technology and telephone operators.
Since 2004, Hospital Grade have also been polluting, building, programming, creating, confusing, and occasionally blowing things up. Ever since Mike McAloon, Jason Ogden, Andrew Earle and Adam Kierstead came together in the burned-out shell of an apartment building that they dubbed The Firetrap, they’ve been chasing a mutation of that same elusive muse that tempts and rejects the city they live in. It hides in the corners of dark, deserted basements and storefronts; it lurks in the rhythms of industry; machines that pound away in the night; it’s never the same beast or beat, but it’s always seductive, and has a sweet song to draw you in right before it drops its mask and takes you somewhere new and unexpected.
Hospital Grade’s first album, Written Axe to Trigger, was released in 2004 on URININE Records out of Kansas City, MO. Indie Workshop heralded the debut as being “both addicting and discreet” and defined the band as plumbing “soil grinding lows” and “soaring to ceiling pounding highs that few bands can reach”. They followed the release with a U.S. Tour, then an ongoing Canadian tour.
Over the past two years, the band has been recording a new album called “Secrets & Sawdust”. The band considers this album a “new map” to the twists and turns in their live shows. It, too, is an addictive and discreet document, full of warnings, pounding fists, frustration, cries for help and pointed fingers. From the winding, sinewy strains of "Walking Papers, Too" to the stark, melancholy landscape of "Soviet", Hospital Grade keeps things surprising enough to keep you guessing, all the while planting subtle hooks that infect and incubate.
Finding patterns in chaos can bring some semblance of comfort. To be sure, the maps in Hospital Grade's glovebox are detailing routes that are anything but direct. But the mix tape playing on the battered stereo is full of the familiar sounds of 90's alt /post-punk, Dischord Records and britpop. The engine growls beneath, driving things forward, and a nervous foot twitches over the brake. With Secrets & Sawdust, Hospital Grade hands over a few more of their maps.
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