Bio
Canada’s Fifth Hour Hero play music like it’s their lives. The good. The tragic. Ugliness and pain. The beautiful and delicate. Grit. All together. The best music is cartography of the heart. It’s a treasure map to pure awe. Music, when played purely, is an unashamed celebration. It covers all speeds. It doesn’t have one “sound,” but a soul. Quebec’s four-piece Fifth Hour Hero play driving-spirit, often-tragic punk melodies that are so big, they seem to be scratching the sky. Catchy but not poppy. Anthemic, yet personal.
“Not Revenge...” isn’t just the result of band going into a studio, hastily hammering
out a batch of songs, and rolling out on an endless tour. It’s a story about a band that’s seen its share of van transmissions failing at the worst possible
times, about eating peanut butter sandwiches three meals a day in order to afford gas to the next show, about duct-taped sneakers up on the dash of a cracked windshield after a border crossing and watching the sun rise. It’s about a band that hasn’t forgotten any of the anxiety—and fun and tenderness—of being a group of DIY musicians, and forging that experience into their best record
yet. It’s about shaping and smoothing songs—like rocks to gemstones—to their highest luster without betraying their initial beauty. “Not Revenge...” was recorded by Ronny Cates (of the Rec Room) and Derron Nuhfer (bass player of Gunmoll and saxophone player of Less Than Jake) and refined at a friend’s studio (Beaudet of The Sainte Catherines).
Fifth Hour Hero started under a different name in 1997. Over five musicians filtered through lineups, the name was adopted, and positions in the band were moved around. Like the first day of school, fumbling with a locker, it took time to find the right combination; to open it up and get down to business.
Geneviéve Tremblay, who you may already know from her backups on Against Me’s “Searching for a Former Clarity,” has a strident, beautiful voice. It’s the most striking first impression of Fifth Hour Hero. But we’re not talking solely about an angel with backup. We’re talking about a band. Olivier Maguire shares vocal duties while Dave Chamberland and Mathieu Guilbault all make equal contributions to the expansive plains to “Not Revenge...” The songs sound they all have barbed wire at the edges. Songs that play like drives through long-distance
vistas: equal parts tough, pretty, and rough.
Fifth Hour Hero have won awards from important tastemakers, gone on plenty of shitty tours and a couple of good ones, and have a lot of friends who are more than willing to help them out because they’re downright nice and super-talented Canadians.
If you like the following bands, chances are you’ll like Fifth Hour Hero: Discount,
Against Me, Strike Anywhere, Hot Water Music, Allergic to Bullshit, Leatherface, X, Cowboy Junkies, Weakerthans, Soviettes.
—Todd Taylor (Razorcake, Thrasher, Alternative Press)
“Not Revenge...” isn’t just the result of band going into a studio, hastily hammering
out a batch of songs, and rolling out on an endless tour. It’s a story about a band that’s seen its share of van transmissions failing at the worst possible
times, about eating peanut butter sandwiches three meals a day in order to afford gas to the next show, about duct-taped sneakers up on the dash of a cracked windshield after a border crossing and watching the sun rise. It’s about a band that hasn’t forgotten any of the anxiety—and fun and tenderness—of being a group of DIY musicians, and forging that experience into their best record
yet. It’s about shaping and smoothing songs—like rocks to gemstones—to their highest luster without betraying their initial beauty. “Not Revenge...” was recorded by Ronny Cates (of the Rec Room) and Derron Nuhfer (bass player of Gunmoll and saxophone player of Less Than Jake) and refined at a friend’s studio (Beaudet of The Sainte Catherines).
Fifth Hour Hero started under a different name in 1997. Over five musicians filtered through lineups, the name was adopted, and positions in the band were moved around. Like the first day of school, fumbling with a locker, it took time to find the right combination; to open it up and get down to business.
Geneviéve Tremblay, who you may already know from her backups on Against Me’s “Searching for a Former Clarity,” has a strident, beautiful voice. It’s the most striking first impression of Fifth Hour Hero. But we’re not talking solely about an angel with backup. We’re talking about a band. Olivier Maguire shares vocal duties while Dave Chamberland and Mathieu Guilbault all make equal contributions to the expansive plains to “Not Revenge...” The songs sound they all have barbed wire at the edges. Songs that play like drives through long-distance
vistas: equal parts tough, pretty, and rough.
Fifth Hour Hero have won awards from important tastemakers, gone on plenty of shitty tours and a couple of good ones, and have a lot of friends who are more than willing to help them out because they’re downright nice and super-talented Canadians.
If you like the following bands, chances are you’ll like Fifth Hour Hero: Discount,
Against Me, Strike Anywhere, Hot Water Music, Allergic to Bullshit, Leatherface, X, Cowboy Junkies, Weakerthans, Soviettes.
—Todd Taylor (Razorcake, Thrasher, Alternative Press)
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Location: Canada
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Profile Views: 147
Song Plays: 1
Member Since: Feb 12, 2008
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