Tightrope

Artist: Tightrope

Genre: Hardcore punk

For fans of: Anchors / The (Philadelphia) Curse / Vultures United

Why you should pay attention to them:

The bands that eventually become my favorite always have two things in common: they aren’t punk or hardcore, but somewhere in the middle and exude a special kind of energy that makes you want to see them live. It’s not an easily achievable feat and as simple as it sounds not many bands are able to click in that way with me. Tightrope, while still in its infancy is showing signs that they may be able to cross over into the ‘favorite zone’ if they keep perfecting their craft of just barely restrained fury.

Read our interview with Tightrope below along with a track off their new EP.

Give our readers some background on the band? Where are you from? What kind of music do you make?

Antoine Kerten: We’re a melodic hardcore band from Montreal.

You’re a hardcore punk band, but what parts of each genre are melded together to get the Tightrope sound?

I think we’ve got the aggressiveness and speed of hardcore punk with a lot of melody

and hooks thrown in. Some people call us a pop punk band, others call us a hardcore band, I guess we are somewhere in the middle. I don’t really care for classifications
too much, so I’ll just say we all like Lifetime a whole lot.

Do you find it a hard line to walk sometimes? Ever feel not punk or hardcore enough for a certain crowd?

We don’t really think about it, we’ve played punk rock shows and hardcore shows and
found that the reception is pretty much the same. I wish people would come out and
support the punk rock scene here as much as they do in the hardcore scene, though.



Over the past year you’ve been hard at work on your first official release. The self-titled album is an EP, six songs long. What was the process of putting it together like?

Well, some of the songs on this record were written at our very first jams when we were
just three dudes who had never played together before. Gradually the lineup became
what it is now and we kept writing the whole time. For example, the song ‘’Breakthrough’’ is the first song we ever played as a band and ‘’Motherfuckers Inc.’’
was written a couple of months before we started recording.

Different people have different methods when it comes to writing lyrics, what is yours?

I have the most ridiculous writing process: I literally scribble down sentences on a piece of paper on my way to the studio, sometimes I finish the song a few minutes before starting to record. I always somewhat pull it off, I’m just one of these people that works better under pressure.

What topics do you touch on throughout the EP?

There’s a couple of songs that are a little ambiguous, with just a general
‘’Life is short, follow your ambitions’’ kind of vibe. Some are more direct, the song
‘’Jerry’’ is about someone close to me who committed suicide, ‘’Motherfuckers Inc.’’
is about a friendship gone bad.

If you had to pin down an overall emotion that you hope your listeners feel while listening to it what would you hope for?

Hmm.. I don’t know, don’t take it too seriously, it’s just a punk record. Just enjoy and be happy!



What do you feel when listening to it?

I think it’s universal for band members listening to their own music to feel annoyed by little things they wish they could change. I’m generally pretty content with how it turned out, though.

Musically what has changed since the demo?

We’ve definitely gotten to know each other better musically since then,
and I think we are a little more focused on style or ‘’vibe’’ for the songs.

You guys just got back from a weekend trip in the US. How did that go?

It was great, we are always stoked to come down and play in the US, we went down
to New Jersey this time around , hung out at the beach and played a sweet basement show. We also played Albany, NY with our good friends After The Fall who are always
fun to see and hang out with.

How do US shows compare to Canadian ones? Do they draw the same type of crowds?

There isn’t a huge difference, but we love playing the states because people seem
to take more of a genuine interest in your band and the local scene in general.
There seems to be more of a community. That might just be because we are from
a big city where on any given night there are five different shows fighting for your attention, but every time we’ve played in the US I have felt this vibe and we don’t quite
have up in Canada. Although there are definitely some great spots to play up here.



The hours spent driving must drive you mad. Who’s playing on the stereo to keep you sane?

Iron Chic and Bob Dylan

The new EP was pressed on vinyl, how’d they turn out? Are you happy with them?

Yeah man, they look pretty nice. We’ve pressed them on clear, blue and black.
The artwork also came out pretty rad, our friend Christine let us use a picture
she took as the cover art and it looks great.

What do you have planned for the remainder of the summer? Working on any new material yet? If so, what are you hoping to achieve that you weren’t able to this time around?

We actually have 5 new songs completely recorded and ready to go for
a split with our buddies Brutal Youth from Toronto. I think we’ve gotten
much closer to finding ‘’our sound’’ on this one. It’s more constant, stylistically.
It should come out this fall! - pmpdblog.com

Being slightly too old and disconnected from the hardcore scene or history, I’ll typically be at a loss to frame bands like Tightrope within some fractured niche of the genre. (Um.. melodic hardcore? Ahhhh…) So why bother? I’ll just enjoy the tunes on their own merit and energy. Blasting outta dank basements and crusty nooks of Montreal, Tightrope is a snappy, heavy and tight fist of fury, their self titled 7” packed with breakneck speed limblifters. Conjuring youthful anger and frantic moshpits, standout bangers like “Jerry” and “Breakthrough” elevate the band from a morass of bands that attempt for this sound but simply don’t have the chops.
Brash, heavy, fast and melodic, a promising and gratifying release that’s maybe produced a touch too clean for my filthy tastes, but this doesn’t detract at all from the overall success of the 7”, which launches thick, fast and snotty balls of punk fury at the listener and is sure to pummel any would be moshpit into happy submission. - Bigtakeover.com

Montreal’s Tightrope open this six-track EP with a whine of feedback. I have to be honest here, I love that sound. It’s almost like an air-raid siren, declaring that all should run and take cover. However, in terms of music, for me it usually indicates that something good will follow. Okay, there are numerous exceptions to the rule and I've been let down more times than I care to mention, but Tightrope do not come into that category.

That feedback is the beginning of “No Sleep”, which then progresses onto some solid, almost metallic riffage, before springing into a slightly more hardcore approach for the guts of the track, all of which is well-paced and comes across as a solid opening declaration from the band. However, the next track “Jerry” comes as a slight curveball, as it’s much more melodic and a fraction slower than its predecessor. Featuring the excellent line “Honestly man, It’s the same shit every time and I sympathise, just don’t make your problems mine,” this song shows that Tightrope have got more going for them than just musical ability. This is well-played, well-written melodic punk rock with a gruff vocal delivery that tops it off nicely.

The final track before the vinyl gets flipped is “Admit Defeat”, which continues in the same vein as “Jerry”, although with a bit more velocity to it and displaying more of their tuneful yet gruff, melodic punk rock sound containing some strong personal lyrics as shown in the final verse:

“Settling down is just your way of giving in
If I'm not like you I fucking win.
Admit defeat and let the years chew up
your skin, If I'm not like you I fucking win.”

First up on the flipside is “Breakthrough”, easily the best track here so far, which again has a punchy quality to it with decent lyrics both to listen to and sing along with. “Gramophone” keeps up the momentum and leads nicely into the best track on this single, “Motherfuckers, Inc”. For me this is the strongest and catchiest song here, showing the band at their peak. That’s not to detract from any of the other tracks that go before but here is the pinnacle of this release and they cleverly saved it 'till last.

The more I listen to this (and I've listened to it a dozen times today so far) the more I like it—there’s a substance that stands out here within the energetic approach, and hopefully Tightrope will be producing more of the same soon. Approximately 148 minutes well spent today! - Punknews.org