Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Bring The Fallen

It's time for our first Defunct Local Band Profile of 2012, and after three double profiles in the past four months, it's fitting to kick off the new year in style with a full one-band profile this time around! As always, this series revolves around profiling a defunct or inactive metal or hard rock band from the Sault Ste. Marie area, and as we've done since the series launched in 2010, this band was randomly chosen using a random number generator program. This month, we picked a very notable band from recent history, so read on for this month's profile! (Updated on August 27th, 2013)
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Bring The Fallen

Genre: Death/Thrash Metal

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members: (Members not in their last full lineup in italics)

Josh Stephney (The Bear Hunters), vocals

Andrew Chiarello (AtrophiA), lead guitar

Dan Souliere (AtrophiA, March Into Regression), rhythm guitar

Nolan Rainville (Giwakwa), bass

Travis St. Amour (March Into Regression, Fountain of Betrayal), drums

Aaron Gasparetto, lead guitar
Joey Graham (Ashoka at the Show), drums

Audio/Video: A decent amount of Bring The Fallen videos are online from their two year local run, scattered across numerous YouTube channels, but the best spots to see their videos would be on guitarist Dan Souliere's cousin Jesse's YouTube channel (featuring 3 Necropolis-era videos from 2009) and The Sault Metal Scene's YouTube channel, which features a handful of live videos from shows mostly in 2010, along with three unmastered mixes from their unreleased debut EP, and a video from their 2013 reunion. To check everything out, search YouTube or the above links for "Bring The Fallen"! To embed here, I chose this 9 minute video of Bring The Fallen playing three songs at their headlining performance at Nite-Life Dance Club's portion of the Algoma Hope4Haiti fundraiser on February 20th, 2010, so give it a look, and thanks to YouTube user filghtmaster for the upload!

Info/Analysis: Originally named The Undead Warriors, Necropolis, and Silent Plague, Bring The Fallen launched in late 2008, and made their live debut at March 2009's YMCA Battle of the Bands, winning first place. Notably, the band followed that early success with two more victories in December 2009's Algoma University Battle of the Bands & the Downtown Showdown battle in May 2010, helping raise their local profile! During their two year run, Bring The Fallen opened for notable bands like Upheaval of an Exorcist, Woods of Ypres, and Broadcast Zero, recorded songs towards their debut EP in 2009, earned a fall 2010 article in The Fresh Magazine, and were a frequent sight at numerous local metal concerts through 2011, including many of the early Roosevelt Hotel metal nights. Band activity slowed in 2010 & early 2011, with many later concerts not featuring their full lineup. After numerous rumours about band tensions & their status spread in early 2011, Bring The Fallen would ultimately part ways that April, just weeks after their last show. The band reunited one last time in July 2013 at The Oddfellows Hall prior to Josh Stephney & Nolan Rainville's respective moves out of town, during which they finally released their EP "Stand Before" after a 4 year wait.

Bring The Fallen definitely deserve a lot of credit for their death metal proficiency and for helping usher in our current wave of death metal bands in Sault Ontario. They were tight and had some very brutal original material in their setlists, bolstered by some brutal growling by Jos and shredding lead guitar work by Andrew Chiarello, though the whole band are very talented! The fact that they won 3 battles of the bands in a 14 month span is proof enough of their talents, and luckily, they were heavy and easy to mosh to as well! Though their full local run barely lasted two years, they were still a devastating and entertaining local sight, and maybe they'll come back down the road! Check them out at the above links!

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I hope you guys enjoyed this year's first Defunct Local Band Profile! So, what's coming up next in this series? A Sault Michigan band, but which one? Through completely random selection, I've chosen the inactive hard rock cover quartet Shift, featuring current members of Swayze Train, NoXcape, and Seeking Reverence in their lineup! That should be an interesting profile, but there's many more feature posts coming before we post that on or around February 10th, including our next poll results/new poll launch next Tuesday, which will include our next "Favourite ____ of 2011" post, so keep an eye out for that and much more news over the next week or so! Thanks everyone!