Since 1993 East Vancouver agit-punk band Submission Hold has been mixing radical politics with genre-bending sounds, and challenging the musical and intellectual assumptions of their audience. In their 10+ years as a fiercely independent band, they’ve recorded two records for Goleta, CA’s Ebullition Records, and played countless basements, community halls, and squats in over 20 countries. What Holds Back the Elephant, their third full length and debut for G7, finds them using elements of eastern folk, free improv, punk rock and whatever else crosses their musical palate to form the musical base of their collective ideology.

Lyrically the record manages to touch on Bush Jr's rise to power (Final Coup of the Last Millenneum), religious fanatacism (Woodenhead) and make connections between feminism and environmentalism (Dirt) all without resorting to the embarrassingly painful and nebulous platitudes that one finds oneself continually subjected to these days while every crappy "punk" band on earth scrambles to board the lucrative wagon of regime (ex)change. (I can hardly wait ‘til November 3rd, when all these self-congratulatory johnny-come-lately's go back to doing what is was they did before they decided armchair activism was a good career move: absolutely nothing.) The music on What Holds Back the Elephant is in turn challenging, relaxing, infectious and assaulting, while the lyrics delivered by vocalist Jen's epic, soaring voice are sometimes direct, other times introspective glimpses at a world gone mad.