Scrapbooker

Scrapbooker, Lying for the Sake of Lying
Let me start off by saying that there is no way in damn you're going to sleep on this.
Following that, I've never been to Edmonton but I'll just go ahead and call them Edmonton's finest.
And following that, as I'm sure my regular readers know, I take my bike either around the river or around the lakes on Sundays. For the past few months, I've been feeding myself a steady diet of Naked Raygun and Mclusky. After giving this record a listen, I downloaded it, transferred it to my phone, and listened to it on constant repeat while I dealt with all them yuppie ponces around Lake Calhoun. (Speaking of Lake Calhoun, there was a disappointing lack of jiggle-butts out jogging and rollerblading today.) 94°F, a crystal clear lake, and some of the best noise to happen in May 2010 pumping into my ears? I can't think of a better late morning activity. (Other than fucking.)
"Budd", the opening number, in title alone had me thinking Edmonton's finest were going to cover Rapeman's "Budd". This "Budd", while being about the same R. Budd Dwyer, is a completely different animal. I was immediately taken back to NWOH's hardcore punk scene. The lyrics read like a transcript of Dwyer's internal monologue from his infamous press conference.
"Budd" raises the bar and the follow up, "Crush the Mountain" certainly jumps it. I've got to tell you, the Canadian kids are getting it right. All (OK, maybe not all but certainly an uncomfortably sized chunk) of the Yankee two-singer "post-hardcore" bands or whatever the emo kids are calling themselves now that are getting popular and scoring these Victrory Records record deals based on the strength of their hair swoops and little sister pants are nothing but a goddamned embarrassment to us here south of the Great White North. We've always known it, we can't lie anymore. Canadians are whooping the U.S.'s ass up and down the block. Just listen to "Crush the Mountain" if you don't believe me and then you can go listen to that weak-assed bullshit like The Bunny the Bear or I Wrestled a Bear Once or whatever other lame-o name-with-"bear"-in-it band you can think of. With one song, Scrapbooker just annihilated all those bands the same way I annihilated that bathroom at that Chili's off of I-75 when my brother and I went to buy fireworks in Michigan or that time I absolutely annihilated the bathroom of a Roseville BW3.
Remember how I mentioned Mclusky earlier? "Copsucker" easily contends with everything off of Mclusky Do Dallas for "Most Drunken Furniture Destroying Song of All Time". So, I guess Scrapbooker are going transcontinental: They've already made all the top-rated bullshit emo-band YouTube videos look like fucking pants-wetters and now they're taking on Wales. For real, by the time you get to "Copsucker", you'll know that this is the band that slaps its collective tri-dick against bee hives for kicks.
"Big Bird" brings another Rapeman reference into play because I swear to damn and back that the opening lines remind me of "Trouser Minnow". Again, this is its own animal. If you put this on your iPod or Android phone or whatever music device you use while you bike, this is the one that makes you kick in the high gear. You cruise by rollerbladers and joggers and have yourself a private little laugh as you pass them and tap away at the handle bars. If one song off of Lying for the Sake of Lying is going to be your summer time jam, it's going to be "Big Bird". You don't have any say in this matter.
"... Or Maybe We Will" is, if'n you're into the kinds of things I'm into, is the song you've been waiting for for about a month. This is the song you'll leave the bike in high gear for. This is the song that'll make you take ballsy maneuvers on the bike path and curse the five year old with training wheels holding up traffic. Obviously you wouldn't cuss at a fiver year old out loud and you generally don't need music to internally tell the little motherfucker to pick one side of the lane but this one will help to reinforce your internal monologue's unceasing torrent of hatred toward a small child who doesn't know any better. For real, "... Or Maybe We Will" is a total antisocial-enabler.
"A Human Juggernaut" kicks off with a drum intro straight out of Des Kensel's playbook. After that, the music turns into one of those pieces of farm equipment you should stay away from. Remember when Jason Voorhees picked up that one bird in her sleeping bag and just smashed the shit out of her up against a tree? Yeah. That's this song. If this song existed when whichever sequel that was came out, the director would've prolonged that scene to last this song's duration. It would have been brutal, bloody, brain and bone and meat pulp would've started oozing out of the sleeping bag. And somebody on the set would realize, "Oh, shit! She's actually still in there! CUT! CUT CUT CUT, goddamnit, CUT!"
Elliott of Scrapbooker tells me that the guitar was a Godin SD through a Line 6 amp. Aluminum guitar and Traynor nerds take note of that. I'm a Traynor owner and I have a (not really founded on anything) thing against Line 6 gear and I'm saying, "Holy shit!" The guitar sounds awesome. Everything sounds awesome. Really. Go check this record out. Now. - Sound Design and Assembly

I feel like I've had to defend Scrapbooker a lot. Straight up, lyrically they're offensive. But (and I hope I'm right) I feel they're doing something more than simply spewing violence. Part of their performance is to take on the voice of an exploitative police officer or a rapist or something like that - like an actual voice of horror - and just displaying it. OR I could be just way off. It's kind of like the Chicago noise-rock stuff from years ago. The things David Yow or Steve Albini spewed in their bands were pretty anti-social, but definitely an intriguing listen. I feel like Scrapbooker do something similar. I don't know if I feel good about what they do. The way they do it is definitely not the way I would go about it, but they definitely do challenge the listener. They've challenged me, and that doesn't happen often at all. But that's the thing, all that ambiguity makes them dangerous. Scrapbooker are the one band that's really restored that sense of DANGER to punk rock in Alberta. With all this down-tuned posturing going on, Scrapbooker are the ones that are actually making scary music. Because, (straight up) sonically they're incredible. A Scrapbooker show could be a disaster. Things could get broken, people hurt. Sean hits his drums harder than any band I've ever seen (no hyperbole), so half the time I expect the drums to be disintegrated by the end of the set.

Maybe we shouldn't be friends, maybe I should be more discerning. They probably are a bad influence in my life.

Find all their stuff, self-released, on bandcamp. - GonnaGetSued

Oh, look…its a brand new EP from our favorite Canadian psychos!

“Live Sex” came out at the end of October and is now available for streaming via Bandcamp. It doesn’t deviate much from the formula that Scrapbooker set on “Lying For The Sake Of Lying” – they’re still beating crap out of the instruments (with the exception of two spoken pieces (“This World” and “The Perfect Medication” and (to some extent) the closer “Yr Feelings”), and they still sound unapologetically noisy and violent. In short, its a perfect music to torture your parents, pets and/or neighbors.

Needless to say, “Live Sex” comes highly recommended to anyone into Melvins or Jesus Lizard or AmRep, for that matter. - I Heart Noise

Scrapbooker's new EP opens with "Budd," a track that crosses boundaries, touching down with an effects-driven intro, bouncing off some metallic guitar riffing before leading into a spoken-word breakdown over top of barely contained drum hits, finally finding relief in a punked-out blast of screams and guitars. While the whole EP continually challenges accepted song structres, what makes it all work in a brilliant way is that Scrapbooker can dig itself deep down into some mean grooves that tie the disparate pieces together and keep the band focused on the music. - Vue Weekly

Considering the amount of noise/noise-rock submissions that IHRTN receives and how many of them turn out to be by-the-numbers/standard/average fare, its nice to know that there’s always something that would prove to be an exception to the rule.

Scrapbooker are hailing from Edmonton, Alberta, don decidedly non rock-n-roll outfits (think Birthday Party and their suits) and, in addition to that, they also also rock hard. At the very least, those guys understand that noise rock is not just about beating the listener on the head. Every good noise/noise-rock record should have at least some amount of groove along with all the screaming and feedback and infernal drumming and “Lying For The Sake Of Lying” is definitely groovy as hell.

“Lying” starts out with “Budd”, dedicated (presumably) to Dwyer Budd – a fairly popular subject of discussion among rock’n'rollers. This “Budd” is more of a Rapeman thing rather than Filter thing – with its subtle change from relatively calm beginning to screaming/ranting and the explosive middle part/ending. The rest of tracks are exploring a similar territory – they’re all dripping with fury, and include further discussions/ranting/screaming about a host of different subjects ranging from Vietnam to serial killers and…gay penguins? Alright, nevermind.

In all seriousness, though, this is a solid record with good production values. They’re no Jesus Lizard or Melvins (yet), but for now it sounds like Scrapbooker have all the chances in the world to compete with the best of them. - I Heart Noise