Piss Turn the Stage Into a Ritual: Canadian Punks Face Trauma Head-On on Debut Album

Watching Piss live feels like getting hit with an unguarded punch. This Canadian hardcore punk four-piece's stage presence is less a traditional band performance and more akin to performance art, or a kind of conceptual exorcism ritual—running a full 30 minutes, playing their forthcoming debut album "You Made Me / Skin On Linen" start to finish.

Vocalist Taylor Zantingh paces back and forth onstage, her face twisted in anguish, her body often folding under the weight of the lyrics. Behind her, guitarist Tyler Patterson, bassist Gavin Moya, and drummer Garreth Roberts build up layer upon layer of noise walls, swinging wildly in tone from the brutally unforgiving "I Wanted To Be A Singer" to the warped, dance-tinged "Time Loop At Hot Slit." Between songs, clips of footage featuring feminist activists, literary philosophers, and children are woven in. Running through the entire set, impossible to ignore, is the pain left behind by Zantingh's own experience of sexual violence trauma—this album is drawn directly from her lived experience.

This subject matter is clearly not typical festival entertainment, yet at this year's End Of The Road festival, Piss's tent was still packed with fans. At the time, the band had only released three demo tracks on Bandcamp, but word-of-mouth had already spread in a very real way. Since they began performing live in 2024, they've built an increasingly devoted following across Canada and North America; and at The Great Escape festival in Brighton, UK this past May, the band's sheer impact led many to call it the most talked-about set of the entire festival.

On the meaning behind this album, the band put it this way: "This album is meant to continue a conversation that's already been going on for a long time." There's no exaggeration in that statement, no attempt to repackage trauma into something new—it's simply an acknowledgment that this conversation was long overdue to be heard.

The official release date and distribution details for "You Made Me / Skin On Linen" have not yet been announced.