Jr Ewing

Established in Oslo, Norway during 1998, JR Ewing delivered angular guitars and relentless riffs that recalled Drive Like Jehu, the Hot Snakes, At the Drive-In, and Refused. The group tracked six songs at X-Ray Studios just months after assembling, yielding the self-released Integritas.Consonantia.Claritas 7" that Lilac Sky later reissued. Following tours across Scandinavia and Europe, the band issued split 7"s alongside Break and SYC. Its debut full-length, Calling in Dead, captured in six days and issued by Coalition Records in 2000, introduced tighter songwriting that sharpened the overall sound. The Singles Collected appeared next on the German label Scorched Earth Policy. In February 2001 the quartet committed The Perfect Drama EP to tape, adopting a lo-fi trash aesthetic. When illness sidelined drummer Morten Billeskans and halted a planned tour, the lineup stabilized around vocalist Andreas Tylden, guitarists Erlend Mokkelbost and Håkon Mella, bassist Petter Snekkestad, and Kenneth Lamond on drums; the revised unit then cut a split with This Machine Kills. Recorded over nine days in May 2002 and released in February 2003, Ride Paranoia became JR Ewing’s first outing for Gold Standard Laboratories and its most refined statement, its tightly wound dual guitars and thrashy intensity clearing away stagnation within hardcore. The band’s last album, Maelstrom, surfaced in the United States in May 2005 at virtually the same moment the members disclosed their breakup; after a final round of European dates that autumn, JR Ewing disbanded.