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Artist
Thoughts of Ionesco
12+ albums
hardcoremetalcoremathcoreheavysuicidal
about
From ALL Music Guide: Recording their first record when two-thirds of the band members were still in high school and breaking up when most were barely 21 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." Forming in 1996, the hardcore, art-damaged soul of TOI 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. Thoughts of Ionesco were in a class of their own; their performances were notoriously destructive -- instruments were smashed in minutes, walls were kicked in, blood was shed, bottles were thrown -- as the band members showed ab
