Recording their first record when two-thirds of the band members were still in high school and breaking up when most were barely twenty-one-years old, it's a wonder that the infamous Detroit outfit Thoughts Of Ionesco even lasted the few years that they did. Confrontational to audiences, uninterested in record labels, exceedingly dark and heavy, the band played music that was once referred to by Alternative Press magazine as, "the ultimate realization of pain-through-sound." Forged in 1996, the hardcore, art-damaged soul materialized around vocalist/guitarist Sean Hoen, bassist Nathan Miller, and drummer Brian Repa; the band also included a sax player by the end of its career. Repa left and returned several times during the band's existence, and Derek Grant (ex-Suicide Machines, Alkaline Trio) served as his replacement for a stretch from 1997-1998. The trio, whose collective mental stability was often called into question by even those close to them, was most often compared to ‘My War’-era Black Flag, mixing hatred and aggression with super-heavy riffs, free jazz exploration, a brutal live show, and hefty doses of nihilism, self-loathing, and pure masochistic rage to produce a sound wholly challenging and frequently misunderstood. TOI toured the U.S. and Canada numerous times, playing with extreme music acts such as Brutal Truth, Nile, Converge, Botch, Bloodlet, Coalesce, Damnation AD, His Hero Is Gone, and Dillinger Escape Plan. But, they remained obscure and imploded in 1999, only later finding some recognition as their music was collected together and released.
But, in February 2017, Thoughts of Ionesco announced their first show in eighteen years, scheduled for June 24th at Detroit's Magic Stick Theater featuring the 1998 line-up of Sean Madigan Hoen, Derek Grant, and Nathan Miller, with ex-Dillinger Escape Plan guitarist Jeff Tuttle as a new addition. On top of that they have also released their first new recorded material in nearly two decades with ‘Skar Cymbals’, a four-track EP. Just twenty-eight minutes in length one can see exactly why these guys were creating such a stir twenty years ago. This is brutal, yet also full of ideas and energy. It doesn’t rely just on aggression to get its point across, but that is still an important element as well. To my poor abused ears, Black Flag is still the band I would point to first as a major influence, but there is so much more going on here, so that they will be appreciated by many metal fans who are into the more extreme side as well as hardcore and punkers. Brutal, and in your face, this is music that demands your attention, and rightly so.
