Five song solo egg-punk project from Montreal, QC. I’ve seen the tape named ICSTQ standing for I Can’t Stand To Quit, but on both the front cover and the spine of the cassette there is no “I” in Can’t Stand To Quit. The tape begins with the allegedly titular track of “ICSTQ” which starts off sounding as if everything was recorded too slowly. Add in what sounds like dog barks to the drum machine and I started slightly hoping that Trevor Bushey COULD stand to quit. Almost instantly after that, however WHITE KNUCKLE hits us with a barrage of noodly, kooky, plink-plunky synth-heavy songs that instantly made me remember how much I love the wild song writing ingenuity that comes from the freedom out doing a project all your own. Blending artsy aspects with beautifully catchy tunes, WHITE KNUCKLE does an interesting job of meandering around different subgenres from song to song keeping each one feeling fresh and preventing them from blending together. I saw this band play in their hometown of Montreal twice in one night. First at Traxide, and then I was lucky enough to be part of a crew that thought it would be funny to get WHITE KNUCKLE to play again at a quiet after-hours open mic night at a bar just up the road. We were right, it was absolutely hilarious. I don’t think anything involving this band will ever top that performance, including this recording, but to be fair that standard is pretty high. 

Label: Syf Records

Band: WHITE KNUCKLE