"We'll Hide Away" Brings Grain's Mid-1990s Post-Hardcore Genius Into Focus (Early Album Stream)

I just so happen to be here on business, but Cleveland sure is a fitting place for me to be writing about Grain, a long-lost post-hardcore act from this same city who are seeing their also long-lost discography reissued through Solid Brass Records. From the perspective of a Chicagoan, who admittedly has mostly been in hotels on the edge of the city multiple times this year, Cleveland seems almost to be between two worlds. It’s nestled against the east edge of the Midwest, standing guard against the Eastern United States. Everyone I meet here seems to have just as many stories about visiting Chicago as they do Philadelphia, and my fellow writers from Canada, Pennsylvania, and beyond all know folks here. Grain’s work shows that same interconnectedness: from a geography perspective, they seem to tap into the emotional sound of the mid-1990s Midwest’s hardcore scene, the East Coast’s unhinged spirit, and Cleveland’s own deep rock’n’roll roots to form a fiercely intimate sound of their own.

Recorded between 1993 and 1995 and now finally compiled, We’ll Hide Away: Complete Recordings 1993-1995 brings together two 7″ records, a split 7″, and a few compilation tracks: brief in duration, but it left enough of an impact to field over 100 shows nonetheless. The live shows must have been insane: there’s an energy to Grain’s work that’s absolutely infectious. Their loud, eager pacing holds a wistful yearning beneath that’s sometimes revealed through melodic beauty (“Jim Thorpe”), and at other points through suddenly clear, poignant lyrics that burst through the loudness.

Whether it’s the sad, fun, or just heavy bits that most appeal to you, Grain didn’t just do one thing, and in their brief career created a body of work that ought to press multiple buttons for most listeners – check it all out below, streaming early here.

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We’ll Hide Away: Complete Recordings 1993-1995 releases August 11th via Solid Brass Records.