Yesterday saw the release of Break The Clasp from Montreal outfit LAE. If the name’s ringing bells, it may be because the group are an evolution from an earlier iteration, a post-hardcore crew named LAE-TSEU, who disbanded in the late 90s following some musical and personal strife. Four of the band’s members – Ronald Jean-Gilles, Serge Nakauchi Pelletier, Stephane Desgroseilliers and Marc Lucas Ablasou – reconvened last year, marking a new start by ditching the second half of their name and enlisting Steve Austin from Nashville luminaries Today Is The Day to record their debut album. So enamoured of the new music – we’re particularly pleased to see saws listed in the instrument line-up – was he that Austin ended up recording lead vocals for what would become Break The Clasp, as well as getting it mastered at his Ausin Enterprises studio in Maine.
The resultant record is a fragmentary, shifting set, switching between Slint-like passages of angular guitar and sung-spoken vocals and abrasive assaults (witness the caustic fuzz at the core of ‘Sister’), punctuated by acoustic sketches in the shape of ‘Broken Knee’, ‘Let Me Die In The Memory Of Her Arms’ and ‘Space Travel’, and we’re hugely pleased to be able to host a full stream – listen above. It’s out digitally and on CD from The Compound/Battleground Records now, with a double-LP edition set to follow in February; head here to get hold of it.
