Hospital Corners Review

I’m going to be short and to the point here: this album is gold dust. The kind of musical gem that appears a handful of times a year and shines so bright you can’t help but pick it up with both hands.

Now I’ve got that out of my system, perhaps you might like me to go into some detail? Yes? Ok then…

‘Hospital Corners’, the debut from North Wales Quartet Bastions is possibly as good as debut albums get unless they happen to be one of those genre bending once-a-decade-masterpieces (i.e. The Strokes ‘Is This It’). Ten tracks and less than half an hour of music that will almost certainly leave you wanting more.

It all starts with ‘Augury’, debuted a few weeks ago on the Daniel P Carter show, with an ominous opening riff leading to full on thrash mode and screams of ‘lead me to the river/I will find you’. It is a starting point from which the record lifts off.

‘Visitants’ is up next, with more fiery guitar work and thundering bass. When singer Jay utters the words ‘I wait/ so patiently’ over the brooding, feedback laced ending it is ever so slightly blood chilling. Not that he’s the only singer to crop up on the album. ‘The Lengths (When Wants Become Needs)’ features a cameo appearance from ex-Gallows man Frank Carter in its cataclysmic mid-section; although even without the vocal addition it would still be a stormer of a track, complete with an utterly creepy recorded voicemail at the end.

‘Grief Beggar’ is another stand out, starting slow like ‘Augury’ before rapidly hitting a brutal full throttle while ‘I Tried To Stitch The Sea To The Shore’, the track that follows it, shows that the band don’t only do ear tearing hardcore but can also add Mogwai style atmospheric interludes to their already impressive CV.



‘Dark Father’ (the final six minutes of the record) sums up, in many ways, the album as a whole. Bile and rage in lyrical form set to furious riffs and pounding drums. Yet mid song, with the chants of ‘Dark Father, Rise’ still in your mind, the pace drops and the storm calms, only to build again and become, by the final seconds, something even more powerful than before (no Star Wars pun intended).


If you do pick up this record (and I recommend you do) you’ll find a lot of things. Lyrically there is anger and insecurity and a whole load of other things besides (‘When sorrow knocked at my door/ I was too afraid to answer anymore’ for example). Musically you’ll be thrown into a world of feedback and chaotic, expansive guitar work, driven by a rhythm section with the force and mechanical precision of a steam engine. It all just fits together like a well-oiled machine, albeit a slightly scary one.

As I said at the very beginning this is the kind of record that you only see a few of per anum. Cathartic rage hasn’t been expressed this well since Height’s dropped their debut earlier in the year and I’d say that ‘Hospital Corners’ gives even that (my record of the year so far) a run for its money. More importantly, it doesn’t at any point feel forced or stereotypical. There are no formulaic break downs here, but rather a more original and widely listenable strain of hardcore that we could do with a bit more of.

I don’t give ratings, but if I did, this would get the highest one possible. I guess in the end that’s all you really need to know.

(‘Hospital Corners’ is released on the 7th of November on In At The Deep End Records).