Keep Tidy

by Mark Paulhus

Keep Tidy’s introductory release, Basement Mold, consists of seven songs full of tumbling bass lines, Tommy Gun beats, punchy guitar riffs and female vocals blending Karen O-swagger with Kathleen Hanna-style conviction. The whole thing clocks in at eight minutes. Tidy indeed! Shmoo Ritchie, Kyle Huck, Brett Threats and Dustin John Bromley are here to remind us that true hardcore is still alive in the city that gave the genre its name. Basement Mold is furious fun; “DFDKF” will have you swirling and slamming around your living room, “Hit the Ground Running” will have you doing acid drops off the kitchen counter, and by the time “Plate Glass” is over, you’ll have hacked the sleeves off your jean jacket and set out into the night to checking every East Van basement in hopes that Keep Tidy might be there. Basement Mold is the perfect soundtrack for a punk rock summer. Staying true to the d.i.y. spirit, the band is giving the mini-album away for free—download it from their Bandcamp site now and get rad! - Discorder Magazine

Keep Tidy introduced themselves with a rhythmic mess of abrasive, banging drums. Cacophonous vocals that would make friends with Karen O’s throat polyps and playful duels between guitar and bass maintained the frantic energy, which drew audience members close to the band from all sides. Keep Tidy definitely know how to capture the sound of anything and everything that is crazed, and are sure to incite more than smiles and head bobbing at any venue. - Port City Lights

Vancouver has had no shortage of new bands in the last year or so, but one of the most exciting is good-times hardcore quartet Keep Tidy. The band features a bunch of well-known locals, including former bassist for the Organ Shmoo Ritchie, but they outdo their past works with brief blasts of snotty punk.

Basement Mold is their self-recorded debut EP and showcases their ability for briefness with seven songs in eight minutes. Musically, the band pile crushing '80s hardcore riffs on top of each other. In place of snarling screeches, however, Ritchie's vocals are the most unique part of the band, as she attacks each note with a sung vibrato. You will either love them or hate them, but you can decide for yourself.

Keep Tidy's Basement Mold EP can be streamed here or downloaded here. The full tracklisting is below.

?Basement Mold:

1. "Goochie Main"
2. "Simpsons Quotes"
3. "Hit the Ground Running"
4. "Kill Whitey"
5. "DFDKF"
6. "The Stops"
7. "Plate Glass" - exclaim.ca