Greys

Toronto noise punks Greys formed about two years ago when singer/guitarist Shehzaad Jiwani teamed up with high school pal Cam Graham (guitar) and began playing the type of abrasive guitar-based rock they grew up on. They eventually brought in drummer Braeden Craig and bassist Colin Gillespie, and turned Greys into the four-piece touring force that they are. They surfaced with the Ultra Sorta EP in 2011, followed by the Easy Listening EP in 2012, and they're about to drop their heaviest release yet, the Drift EP, on February 12 via their new home, Kind of Like Records. It was recorded by Josh Korody (of Beliefs) at Toronto studio Candle Recording (Owen Pallett, Austra, Doldrums, and more). That EP is making its premiere in this post, and you can stream it in its entirety below.

An easy comparison to make for Greys is their Toronto neighbors METZ (who're touring), but like that band, Greys have reached back to the noise rock-meets-post hardcore of early '90s bands like Drive Like Jehu, The Jesus Lizard, Unsane... the list goes on. You'll also hear elements of My War-era Black Flag sludge, Seattle scene grunge, and straight-ahead fast punk. Plus, the band are working on a full length right now and according to Shehzaad, one of the songs they're working on "sounds like early Sloan, or Guided by Voices, or Pavement."

Greys might look to the past for influence, but not without a wink in their eye. "Hey, we're late to the party," they shout on "Drag," with the sort of post-modern notion that nothing's really original anyway. And they do this while playing with the kind of urgency where nothing in the world matters for two and a half minutes except playing the hell out of their songs. The guitars are thick, the drums pound away in fury, and Shehzaad shouts with a burning passion as he delivers lines like, "We have no marching song to overthrow our leadership/We have no teenage anthem to make ourselves feel like shit," on "Drag," which itself could end up making a pretty good case for being either of those things. "Drag" is the EP's second track, and it's sandwiched between the fast-paced opener "Carjack" and the notably longer closing track, "Pill," a song about medical issues which opens with a discordant swagger and ends with the band literally sounding like they're drowning and screaming out for help.

Greys don't have a tour booked at the moment, but they're expected to head to the US and stop in Manhattan and Brooklyn this March, so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, I just spoke to Shehzaad about the making of the EP, the Toronto scene that they come from, and a pretty crazy experience the band had the last time they played NYC. You can head below to read that interview and listen to a stream of the Drift EP. - Brooklyn Vegan

Toronto noise punks Greys formed about two years ago when singer/guitarist Shehzaad Jiwani teamed up with high school pal Cam Graham (guitar) and began playing the type of abrasive guitar-based rock they grew up on. They eventually brought in drummer Braeden Craig and bassist Colin Gillespie, and turned Greys into the four-piece touring force that they are. They surfaced with the Ultra Sorta EP in 2011, followed by the Easy Listening EP in 2012, and they're about to drop their heaviest release yet, the Drift EP, on February 12 via their new home, Kind of Like Records. It was recorded by Josh Korody (of Beliefs) at Toronto studio Candle Recording (Owen Pallett, Austra, Doldrums, and more). That EP is making its premiere in this post, and you can stream it in its entirety below.

An easy comparison to make for Greys is their Toronto neighbors METZ (who're touring), but like that band, Greys have reached back to the noise rock-meets-post hardcore of early '90s bands like Drive Like Jehu, The Jesus Lizard, Unsane... the list goes on. You'll also hear elements of My War-era Black Flag sludge, Seattle scene grunge, and straight-ahead fast punk. Plus, the band are working on a full length right now and according to Shehzaad, one of the songs they're working on "sounds like early Sloan, or Guided by Voices, or Pavement."

Greys might look to the past for influence, but not without a wink in their eye. "Hey, we're late to the party," they shout on "Drag," with the sort of post-modern notion that nothing's really original anyway. And they do this while playing with the kind of urgency where nothing in the world matters for two and a half minutes except playing the hell out of their songs. The guitars are thick, the drums pound away in fury, and Shehzaad shouts with a burning passion as he delivers lines like, "We have no marching song to overthrow our leadership/We have no teenage anthem to make ourselves feel like shit," on "Drag," which itself could end up making a pretty good case for being either of those things. "Drag" is the EP's second track, and it's sandwiched between the fast-paced opener "Carjack" and the notably longer closing track, "Pill," a song about medical issues which opens with a discordant swagger and ends with the band literally sounding like they're drowning and screaming out for help.

Greys don't have a tour booked at the moment, but they're expected to head to the US and stop in Manhattan and Brooklyn this March, so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, I just spoke to Shehzaad about the making of the EP, the Toronto scene that they come from, and a pretty crazy experience the band had the last time they played NYC. You can head below to read that interview and listen to a stream of the Drift EP. - Brooklyn Vegan

Like fellow Torontonians METZ or Burning Love — or, if we’re keeping our reference points north of the border, Winnipeg’s KEN Mode — Greys are a young band dealing in a form of noise rock/post-punk/hardcore that seems to have sprung directly from ’90s influences: Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, the Jesus Lizard, Helmet … heck, most of the AmRep and Touch & Go catalogs, and just about any band counting John Reis among its membership. It’s a masculine sound, a mean sound; it’s propulsive, pummeling, and often pretty exhilarating.

It’s also a sound Greys have evolved to near-perfection over a relatively short lifespan. The band is made up of Shehzaad Jiwani (guitar/vocals), Cam Graham (guitar), Braeden Craig (drums), and Colin Gillespie (bass), all of them “barely in their 20s,” according to the one-sheet. (Make sure not to confuse the band with ’90s one-album greats the Grays featuring Jason Falkner and Jon Brion.) Greys released the five-song Ultra Sorta EP in April 2011, a few months after forming. They followed that this past May with the Easy Listening EP (mastered by Bob Weston of Shellac, another obvious touchstone here). Between those two points, they toured North America, opening for everyone from Mike Watt to Marnie Stern to Young Widows.

I don’t know how exactly those experiences shaped Greys’ sound, but I do know their forthcoming three-song Drift EP (due out in early 2013) is the tautest, leanest, most explosive recording in their very young catalog: The EP’s first half features two songs, “Carjack” and “Drag,” clocking in at just more than four minutes combined; each track packs into its brief running time the squealing excitement, vertigo-inducing drops, and and rib-bruising jerks of a roller-coaster ride: You get strapped in, you get whipped around at a couple hundred MPH for maybe two minutes, you walk off dizzy, lightheaded, beaming. On the flip is “Pill,” which clocks in at 5:31 and showcases Greys in a different mode/mood altogether, building tension slowly, and releasing it in violent bursts. It’s impossible to not point out the Fugazi influence here, especially as the song kicks off — the first verse almost makes the thing sound like a tribute to/cover of “Margin Walker.” But it soon shifts into something else entirely, something alternately snarling and serene. It’s an addicting piece of music, and I listen to it over and over, deriving some dopamine-infused satisfaction when the guitars burst loose near the 4-minute mark, and with them, Jiwani’s shredded, almost inhuman vocals, screaming, repeating, “Help me,” less like a plea, more like a threat.

I was offered the opportunity to stream one track from Drift here, and after listening to them all a dozen times, and changing my mind with almost every listen, I decided on “Pill,” simply because there’s more to the song. But I find the EP most satisfying as a whole, with the two breakneck scorchers leading into the epic finale. It’s not an easy balance to strike, yet Greys do it with confidence, agility, and abandon. Check out the track below and the EP when it drops. - Stereogum

Like fellow Torontonians METZ or Burning Love — or, if we’re keeping our reference points north of the border, Winnipeg’s KEN Mode — Greys are a young band dealing in a form of noise rock/post-punk/hardcore that seems to have sprung directly from ’90s influences: Fugazi, Drive Like Jehu, the Jesus Lizard, Helmet … heck, most of the AmRep and Touch & Go catalogs, and just about any band counting John Reis among its membership. It’s a masculine sound, a mean sound; it’s propulsive, pummeling, and often pretty exhilarating.

It’s also a sound Greys have evolved to near-perfection over a relatively short lifespan. The band is made up of Shehzaad Jiwani (guitar/vocals), Cam Graham (guitar), Braeden Craig (drums), and Colin Gillespie (bass), all of them “barely in their 20s,” according to the one-sheet. (Make sure not to confuse the band with ’90s one-album greats the Grays featuring Jason Falkner and Jon Brion.) Greys released the five-song Ultra Sorta EP in April 2011, a few months after forming. They followed that this past May with the Easy Listening EP (mastered by Bob Weston of Shellac, another obvious touchstone here). Between those two points, they toured North America, opening for everyone from Mike Watt to Marnie Stern to Young Widows.

I don’t know how exactly those experiences shaped Greys’ sound, but I do know their forthcoming three-song Drift EP (due out in early 2013) is the tautest, leanest, most explosive recording in their very young catalog: The EP’s first half features two songs, “Carjack” and “Drag,” clocking in at just more than four minutes combined; each track packs into its brief running time the squealing excitement, vertigo-inducing drops, and and rib-bruising jerks of a roller-coaster ride: You get strapped in, you get whipped around at a couple hundred MPH for maybe two minutes, you walk off dizzy, lightheaded, beaming. On the flip is “Pill,” which clocks in at 5:31 and showcases Greys in a different mode/mood altogether, building tension slowly, and releasing it in violent bursts. It’s impossible to not point out the Fugazi influence here, especially as the song kicks off — the first verse almost makes the thing sound like a tribute to/cover of “Margin Walker.” But it soon shifts into something else entirely, something alternately snarling and serene. It’s an addicting piece of music, and I listen to it over and over, deriving some dopamine-infused satisfaction when the guitars burst loose near the 4-minute mark, and with them, Jiwani’s shredded, almost inhuman vocals, screaming, repeating, “Help me,” less like a plea, more like a threat.

I was offered the opportunity to stream one track from Drift here, and after listening to them all a dozen times, and changing my mind with almost every listen, I decided on “Pill,” simply because there’s more to the song. But I find the EP most satisfying as a whole, with the two breakneck scorchers leading into the epic finale. It’s not an easy balance to strike, yet Greys do it with confidence, agility, and abandon. Check out the track below and the EP when it drops. - Stereogum

One of an increasing number of bands that are looking to the noise-rock pioneers of the ’90s (Unsane, Hot Snakes, Chokebore) for inspiration, Greys do right by their forebears on this, their third consecutive EP in three years. Over the course of three blistering songs, the Toronto quartet find that tantalizing middle ground between the all-out assault of hardcore punk and the dynamics and power of hard rock. It’s a huge leap forward for the band, even after releasing an already impressive six-song EP in 2012 (Easy Listening). These songs sound fuller, more balanced and so much louder than the ones they unleashed just eight months ago. The guitars of Shehzaad Jiwani and Cam Graham snake around one another in a Fugazi-like rhythm/lead dance, and drummer Braeden Craig has come to understand that with music as rich as this, simplicity and force are the key components to making the strongest statement behind the kit. The band’s lyrical gaze have only gotten more steely and furious. They spend the course of “Drag” lamenting about the somewhat down years of their youth when they had “no teenage anthems,” as Jiwani opines before adding an extra bit of bile to the repeated chorus, “Hey, we’re late to the party!” That may be true, but you’re here now, and the rock universe is that much better with you in it. - Alternative Press

One of an increasing number of bands that are looking to the noise-rock pioneers of the ’90s (Unsane, Hot Snakes, Chokebore) for inspiration, Greys do right by their forebears on this, their third consecutive EP in three years. Over the course of three blistering songs, the Toronto quartet find that tantalizing middle ground between the all-out assault of hardcore punk and the dynamics and power of hard rock. It’s a huge leap forward for the band, even after releasing an already impressive six-song EP in 2012 (Easy Listening). These songs sound fuller, more balanced and so much louder than the ones they unleashed just eight months ago. The guitars of Shehzaad Jiwani and Cam Graham snake around one another in a Fugazi-like rhythm/lead dance, and drummer Braeden Craig has come to understand that with music as rich as this, simplicity and force are the key components to making the strongest statement behind the kit. The band’s lyrical gaze have only gotten more steely and furious. They spend the course of “Drag” lamenting about the somewhat down years of their youth when they had “no teenage anthems,” as Jiwani opines before adding an extra bit of bile to the repeated chorus, “Hey, we’re late to the party!” That may be true, but you’re here now, and the rock universe is that much better with you in it. - Alternative Press

Like great emocore stumbling into Jesus Lizard-y '90s noise-punk; "Breed" is probably their fave Nirvana song. - Spin

Like great emocore stumbling into Jesus Lizard-y '90s noise-punk; "Breed" is probably their fave Nirvana song. - Spin

Ultra Sorta is a pretty impressive batch of tunes from this heavier-than-a-really-heavy-thing outfit straight out of Toronto. The group isn’t afraid of throwing in powerful hooks (such as in “Simple Living”), never shies away from an almighty stoner riff (the ultra, mega heavy hold of “Rennie”) and will not be convinced that compromise is anywhere in the cards. With five tracks that take up a scant 15 minutes of your precious time, this hits hard, fast and without apology, the way that Hüsker Dü‘s Land Speed Record did. Of course, this outfit has more in common with Damaged-era Black Flag and Fugazi than Bob Mould and the boys, but the intensity is undeniable. Smart and powerful, this collection of songs is like sprinkling angel dust on your oatmeal. - PopMatters

Ultra Sorta is a pretty impressive batch of tunes from this heavier-than-a-really-heavy-thing outfit straight out of Toronto. The group isn’t afraid of throwing in powerful hooks (such as in “Simple Living”), never shies away from an almighty stoner riff (the ultra, mega heavy hold of “Rennie”) and will not be convinced that compromise is anywhere in the cards. With five tracks that take up a scant 15 minutes of your precious time, this hits hard, fast and without apology, the way that Hüsker Dü‘s Land Speed Record did. Of course, this outfit has more in common with Damaged-era Black Flag and Fugazi than Bob Mould and the boys, but the intensity is undeniable. Smart and powerful, this collection of songs is like sprinkling angel dust on your oatmeal. - PopMatters

It only takes five songs over 15 minutes for Greys to make a striking impression. Ultra Sorta, the Toronto, ON natives' debut EP, is a simple snapshot of how things were: loud, raucous and full of attitude. The four-piece resurrect punk and hardcore vibes from the '90s, proudly wearing their Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu influences. But this is far from a tribute record ? Greys find the space to imprint their sound overtop the obvious origins. Lead singer and guitarist Shehzaad Jiwani is a force able to command melodic interludes ("Black Lodge"), as well as inject intensity via gritty screams ("Rennie"). "Simple Living," coincidently stuck in the middle of the record, bridges both sides of the band's character. Pounding drums and talking vocals intro the track, with noisy guitars and screaming taking over before the catchy chorus. It's the perfect balance that displays the height of Greys, mixing the past with a math rock approach that meshes superbly. "Black Lodge" ends the EP on a similar note, reinforcing the notion that there's much potential waiting to burst forth. - Exclaim

It only takes five songs over 15 minutes for Greys to make a striking impression. Ultra Sorta, the Toronto, ON natives' debut EP, is a simple snapshot of how things were: loud, raucous and full of attitude. The four-piece resurrect punk and hardcore vibes from the '90s, proudly wearing their Fugazi and Drive Like Jehu influences. But this is far from a tribute record ? Greys find the space to imprint their sound overtop the obvious origins. Lead singer and guitarist Shehzaad Jiwani is a force able to command melodic interludes ("Black Lodge"), as well as inject intensity via gritty screams ("Rennie"). "Simple Living," coincidently stuck in the middle of the record, bridges both sides of the band's character. Pounding drums and talking vocals intro the track, with noisy guitars and screaming taking over before the catchy chorus. It's the perfect balance that displays the height of Greys, mixing the past with a math rock approach that meshes superbly. "Black Lodge" ends the EP on a similar note, reinforcing the notion that there's much potential waiting to burst forth. - Exclaim

Toronto’s Greys prefer to keep things simple with the descriptors, calling themselves a “loud rock band,” and despite an itch for more adjectives and sub-genres, when it boils down to it, that’s exactly what they are.
It’s clear from the first few bars of their new EP, Ultra Sorta (out now via Concession Records), that their influences mine ’80s American punk as much as the rolling punk rock ‘n’ roll that local royalty Burning Love lay ferocious and skillful claim to. There are riffs, and they are thick, but there are also some perfectly jagged progressions; on “Simple Living,” a fractured art-punk jam, the blistering sing-shout delivery—especially in the chorus (is it even a chorus?)—sounds like it was taken straight from Fugazi’s In On the Kill Taker (and more specifically, taken straight from “Smallpox Champion.” This is definitely OK with us.)
Vocalist Shehzaad Jiwani’s intensity is not only consistent with but critical to the post-hardcore edge Greys toe so precisely. On “Black Lodge” (streaming above), atonal guitar-scratch breakdowns are headed off by the most straightforward vocal melody you’ll hear on the EP; from there it’s back into thick and fast riffing, only to drag the same arrangement through the sludge seconds later, finishing strong, and unexpectedly, with a guardedly tuneful, shoegaze-y outro—all in one song. Typical structure is thrown aside for an approach that sounds effortless in execution but grand, impressively so, in ambition. If you listen to one track on this EP, make it this one, but there are only five songs, so maybe listen to them all.
There are no wrong turns on this scenic route, and Ultra Sorta is at once direct and sprawling. Greys are upfront with their influences, so this may sound instantly familiar, but they’ve taken great care to mind the details and assemble something of their own to dig into as well. - Torontoist

Toronto’s Greys prefer to keep things simple with the descriptors, calling themselves a “loud rock band,” and despite an itch for more adjectives and sub-genres, when it boils down to it, that’s exactly what they are.
It’s clear from the first few bars of their new EP, Ultra Sorta (out now via Concession Records), that their influences mine ’80s American punk as much as the rolling punk rock ‘n’ roll that local royalty Burning Love lay ferocious and skillful claim to. There are riffs, and they are thick, but there are also some perfectly jagged progressions; on “Simple Living,” a fractured art-punk jam, the blistering sing-shout delivery—especially in the chorus (is it even a chorus?)—sounds like it was taken straight from Fugazi’s In On the Kill Taker (and more specifically, taken straight from “Smallpox Champion.” This is definitely OK with us.)
Vocalist Shehzaad Jiwani’s intensity is not only consistent with but critical to the post-hardcore edge Greys toe so precisely. On “Black Lodge” (streaming above), atonal guitar-scratch breakdowns are headed off by the most straightforward vocal melody you’ll hear on the EP; from there it’s back into thick and fast riffing, only to drag the same arrangement through the sludge seconds later, finishing strong, and unexpectedly, with a guardedly tuneful, shoegaze-y outro—all in one song. Typical structure is thrown aside for an approach that sounds effortless in execution but grand, impressively so, in ambition. If you listen to one track on this EP, make it this one, but there are only five songs, so maybe listen to them all.
There are no wrong turns on this scenic route, and Ultra Sorta is at once direct and sprawling. Greys are upfront with their influences, so this may sound instantly familiar, but they’ve taken great care to mind the details and assemble something of their own to dig into as well. - Torontoist