Biography

"Revolving around the core of guitarist, vocalist, and primary songwriter Owen Traynor, bassist Jake Yencik, and drummer Ryan Yester, Pittsburgh's Shin Guard is the most tightly-wound and heavy emotive hardcore band in America. Their ability to balance their heavier influences with a finely-tuned sense of dynamics and hooks is perhaps their biggest strength. On 2019’s breakthrough album, 2020, they bring in Alex Walsh as fellow guitarist, vocalist, and co-conspirator. The chemistry between all members results in a quantum leap forward in energy and songwriting. Shin Guard represents a cross-section of Pittsburgh’s underground music scene, a middle ground between the hulking, reinforced-steel aggression of earlier Code Orange and the desperate, vulnerable emo of compatriots Short Fictions. 2020 revels in its own mind-bending guitar theatrics, contributing momentum to a rich tapestry of a record that is equal parts emotional catharsis, fight riffs, pyrotechnic drumming, and give-and-take between each member’s versatile screams. Shin Guard followed up 2020 with Death of Spring, a split release with Ohio's For Your Health. Shin Guard pick up the gauntlet they threw down on 2020 and up the ante with yet more aggression and yearning determination. Shin Guard is easily one of the most exciting bands in the American underground right now, and as their screams and bellows show, ignoring them is both a mistake and an impossibility." - Ellie Kovach