Pitchfork

"Due to DAT tapes being lost all of this except tracks 1-10 were transferred from vinyl. This will explain some of the pops and hisses you might hear," read the liner notes of Ottawa hardcore trio Shotmaker's double-disc career retrospective, The Complete Discography. Though the band may shake their fists and curse the day their precious DATs were lost, the needle-to-vinyl sizzle is a blessing-by-hardship. Just as grainy picture quality can make '70s and '80s horror films that much creepier, the "pops and hisses" on 33 out of these 43 tracks make the explosiveness markedly more raw. Besides, this is hardcore we're talking about, and what is listening to hardcore without the tell-tale sonic-signs of 33s and 45s? It can only add to the authenticity, and authentic Shotmaker was.

As exhausting as it is exhaustive, The Complete Discography provides the fairly rare experience of being able to listen to a band's entire body of work in one sitting. If you can stomach it. It's not to say that the material here is without merit, or even bad; Shotmaker's legions of fans will tell you how seminal they were, how they helped usher post-hardcore into "emo" (or "screamo") territory. In retrospect, Shotmaker's importance has been obscured. Surely, most of what is called "emo" today (Jets to Brazil, Rainer Maria, or most laughably, Modest Mouse) has nothing to do with the degree of brashness and raw aggression Shotmaker offered. This hardly matters, though, since the band sounds all the better for it.

While gazing into their entire career, it's as hard to find signs of progress as it is signs of regression. The three boys from Ottawa played it loud, raucous, and unyielding throughout their short life as a band. Sure, their 1996 swansong, Mouse Ear Forget-Me-Not was more polished and melodic (these terms are extremely relative). One untitled and instrumental track on the LP sported acoustic guitars over radio transmission white noise and was easily their "lightest" song. Still, much earlier in their career, on 1994's Crayon Club LP, they even approached catchiness on "10/22/94" with a light, almost playful guitar riff that carries the song.

Of course, Shotmaker spent most of their time rocking, and were undeniably successful when they did. It's hard to find anything on either of these two discs that doesn't succinctly capture the idealist urgency of youth that the best of young hardcore reflects. "Curve" is a chest-tapping slice of classic frenetic hardcore at its most basic. "Controller.Controller" spends more time with Shotmaker's restrained side-- incorporating breakdown segues propelled by bass and drums while guitar strums softly in the distance-- than it does on the exploding power-chord/screaming combo of its chorus. The tension here is amazing, as is the unlikely grace the band provides on the uproarious "Table," where tempos and times signatures shuffle in and out at a break-neck pace.

Lyrically, Shotmaker exhibit less finesse. Nothing they scream about is weak enough to be deemed stupid, but their lyrics are often as esoteric as the hardcore scene itself. Though their aggression allows them to seem sincere and obviously angry about something, it's hard to get a true grip on the band's true agenda. Such insight as "By dividing lines, we create the barriers/ We will not look across/ We will not walk across," plays like oversimplified politics by obscenely headstrong kids.

What saves the lyrics from typical self-righteous, verbal masturbation is Shotmaker's willingness to implicate themselves in the problem. True, they may think that they have solutions to some of society's problems, but ever-present is the use of the word "we," and not just "you." It takes balls to lift some of the blame off society's shoulders and put them on your own, and such a move gives Shotmaker's music and lyrics-- however misguided they sometimes play out-- a rare sense of maturity.

When it comes to categorizing music like Shotmaker's, semantics mean a lot to people. Hardcore. Emo. Screamo. Call their dissonant, abrasive, frenzied sound whatever you like. Argue about it, ponder it, lose sleep over it. What ultimately matters, though, is that these guys were only around for a speck of time and left a legacy that's almost as draining to listen to as I'm sure it was to play. The Complete Discography is testament to the fact that Shotmaker accomplished everything they set out to do, seemingly effortlessly.