Cold Warps

With one member living in Ottawa, Halifax's Cold Warps basically exist on permanent hiatus. You'd never know it by their boisterous set, though. This quartet are a well-honed machine capable of pulling off their '60s surf and garage rock tunes with technical aptitude, while never losing the scrappy fun of their lo-fi recordings. Working without a setlist, the band ripped through selections from their pair of cassette releases, as well as more obscure material, all of which was well received by the crowd of friends and fans in the front who thrashed about the entire set. Not to be outdone, lead singer Paul Hammond rarely stood still, bopping about the stage and venturing into the unusually boisterous crowd on numerous occasions. If these guys can get a more stable thing going, they'll be unstoppable.