Hospital Grade's music breathes and pulses with warmth and life, yet is infused with the stark angles of progress and hints of the repetition and rhythms of manual labour and machinery. It's a horrific accident in the industrial workplace and the subsequent, neccesary infirmary / recovery at once.
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.
Hospital Grade released their first CD, Written Axe To Trigger, in 2004 on Kansas City, MO's URININE Records, and followed it with a U.S. Tour. They just released their sophomore album, Secrets & Sawdust, on BBQ Records.
Secrets & Sawdust is an eleven song work of tense urgency tempered with the calm of a coiled serpent, at rest but ready to spring at the subtlest of movements. It's an addictive and discreet document, full of warnings, pounding fists, frustration, cries for help and pointed fingers.
"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. 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."
- 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."
- Splendid E-Zine
"...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
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