GRADE
The Embarassing Beginning (Victory)
Reviewed by John Sekerka

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Death metal or emo? Guess we'll have to wait for the next album proper from Toronto's Grade to find out. The two-faced outfit that can crank the bottom end out of a gutter while offering enough personal teen angst to pop a million pimples has the pleasure of belonging to two distinct fan based camps and this release won't change any of that. Slapping together early EPs, demos, rare singles and introspective acoustic versions, this well-titled comp doesn't answer any questions, or question any answers, it just plays. And just to really up the confusion factor (always a good thing), they throw in their cover of Van Halen's "Panama".

© 2001 - John Sekerka