Rockstar Bar Battle Of The Bands & Sorrow Fields Updates, Plus Haggith's New Song!!

The news keeps rolling in as we exit the Ides of March, so what's in store for our 19th straight day of posts on the site? Today, we have a brand new studio track from a recently prominent band, our first substantive updates from a local solo project in quite a while, and leading off, updates from a major concert event taking place throughout next month, so read on below for what you need to know!

It looks like local death metal quintet The Bear Hunters are the fourth publically confirmed band for next month's Rockstar Bar Battle of the Bands, in what will also be their Rockstar Bar debut! They haven't officially announced this on their online pages, but guitarist Mitch Sirie confirmed their involvement on his personal Facebook page yesterday, which lines up with drummer Johnny Belanger's ticket availability announcement on the Facebook event page, so it looks certain that The Bear Hunters are in. This means that both of the band's guitarists (Mitch Sirie & Josh Stephney) will be playing twice at the battle in their active band projects, joining The Suicide Kings (featuring Mitch on bass) and Giwakwa (with Josh on vocals.) This isn't common from recent years, but the old Case's Music battles often had bands sharing members, and given that this battle is staggered across four days each week, it probably makes it easier to juggle. The Bear Hunters, as you may remember, competed at last April's Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands (finishing just a point away from a third place tie), and various individual band members have other battle experience of note!

Josh Stephney competed at four battles of the bands fronting Bring The Fallen in 2009 & 2010 (winning three), while bassist Justin Lam finished in fourth place at the YMCA Battle in March 2009 with Operation: Killdozer, and both he and Johnny Belanger competed in at least two battle events in early 2007 with Devastation of the Heavens, so these guys are definitely ready for the challenge, but how will they do next month? The bands mentioned above will join local grunge quartet Haggith and at least five more bands (perhaps more) over the Wednesdays in April, and registration ends in FOUR DAYS! If you or your band haven't registered yet to compete, click here for information on how to do so, and where to buy tickets! Bands play on either April 3rd, 10th, or 17th, with finalists competing for big prizes on the 24th, including $1,000 and studio time at Case's Music, with guaranteed opening slots at some of organizer J.D. Pearce's mid-2013 concerts to be announced, so stay tuned for details and more information on that front, the battle itself, and hopefully within the next two weeks, full details on the schedule & performers! The Rockstar Bar will be rocking hard all month long, so don't miss out!

Next up, here's the latest news from the aforementioned Mitch Sirie's solo project The Sorrow Fields! Previously known as By The Gods, April Eyes, and Animas (though separate from his inactive Eden Plague project), news has been scant on his solo work under any name over the past year, but Mitch recently relaunched it's Facebook page and revealed some new plans relating to his solo work, mainly that he apparently started recording the project's debut album last week! This is (at least) Mitch's second attempt at a solo album (following the canned "Hollow Hope") and according to descriptions on Facebook, it will be a progressive metal album influenced by "life". Stemming from that, Mitch also launched a YouTube channel for The Sorrow Fields on Sunday, and there's already a short teaser clip there to check out! Apparently indicative of the styles and atmosphere to be present on the full tracks, it sounds good as a darker intro, but it's hard to judge until full songs get posted. Still, check out the 26 second preview below, stay tuned for updates, and I've replaced the link for The Sorrow Fields on the SMS to reflect the new updated page!



Finally for today, here's the newest studio track from Haggith's forthcoming third studio album "Deuce"! The Rockstar Bar Battle competitors uploaded their new song "To Stay Alive" onto their YouTube channel yesterday, and it features guitarist Curtis McKenzie on vocals, with drummer Mike Haggith on bass in place of the (again) absent Caleb Cachagee. I'll hold full thoughts until we review our next Haggith CD, but it's a softer ballad-like track in tone. Check it out below, stay tuned for more Haggith news soon, hear 6 of the album's 10 tracks at the above links, and if you're in this year's Relay For Life at Sault College next week, don't miss Haggith's first live set in 2 months!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for hopefully some more news tomorrow, and last month's poll results & our newest poll on Monday! Thanks everyone!