Louise Jaunet | Music journalist

VIDEO REVIEW

Hidden away under the Van Horne Bridge, a special gathering was held on 4 May. A free, outdoor, all-ages event where violence is a community service for those who use vacant public spaces for cultural development, for those who have no one to party with when real conversations about shame and self-destruction are debasive at home, for those who find themselves on the wrong side of the silence and empty space that only a truck can save.

The latest find from subversive label Mothland (Alix Fernz, Yoo Doo Right), Truck Violence, does much more than rat punk music for rats in the style of Black Flag or, closer to us, Chat Pile.

‘He Ended the Bender Hanging’, the new single from their debut album Violence, is a modern blend of hardcore and folk that tackles the issues of rural Western Canada. Guitar, banjo, solemn poetry, sung and shouted vocals, shame, self-sabotage, vagrancy, rusty pots and piled-up beers. This is a realistic account of the situation. You must have seen or heard everything you needed to end up shattering your own life like this.

This clear-eyed look shows just how much singer-poet Karsyn Henderson, guitarist-banjoist Paul Lecours and percussionist Ryley Klima, alongside bassist Chris Clegg, all feel the need to live something within the embrace of a solid community. Everything seems unattainable, nothing seems worth our efforts, only art seems to want to tell us that it's bloody well worth it.