Tuesday, January 28, 2014

Oddfellows Hall All Ages Concert Video Showcase, Including Project 421's New Singer!!

Despite the storm on Friday night and the unfortunate dropout of headliners TheKillingField and Buried Out Back, Heavy North Entertainment's first local concert at The Oddfellows Hall went on as scheduled this past weekend with some late fill-in performers and line-up shuffling, and if (like me) you couldn't make the show, collaborators Blood Shed Productions uploaded some videos from the show over the last few days onto their YouTube channel! Four were posted, but we'll touch on their clip of The Strange Coyotes in an upcoming post to spread things up & to avoid breaking up videos of Blood Shed owner Tyler Gibson's bands. We'll start though with our first look at a performing band's new lineup, so here's what you need to know!

Though the first video we're featuring today is only online via an upload on Tyler's personal Facebook page, and I normally wouldn't share it given that, it does give us our first look at new local metal band Project 421's new quintet lineup! They have officially added Punch frontman Curtis McKenzie as their new lead singer (replacing guitarist Blair Burch, who sang lead at their first show last month), and he indeed made his debut with the band on Friday. While the band hasn't officially confirmed the news, Curt revealed that he's their new frontman via a post on their Facebook page on Saturday, and he's present in this video of Project 421 covering (part of) Diamond Head's "Am I Evil?" at the show. He sounds good, as we've come to expect from his and bandmate Daniel Horton's other recent work, but the vertical camera angle and jittery movements aren't optimal. Note that I don't know if this means anything negative for Punch's status, especially with Curt & Dan's bandmates in The Suicide Kings ramping up activity, but I'll keep you guys posted!

As this is our only footage so far of Project 421's new lineup, I've embedded this video here to show what we have so far, so give it a look below, and stay tuned very soon for big news regarding their next concert!



Moving to some YouTube videos from the show courtesy of the Blood Shed Productions YouTube channel, we have another new lineup debut (albeit on late notice), as Austin McRae's Brutaly Fatal project made their first appearance as a duo on Friday night with label owner Tyler "Ringsnaps" Gibson on drums. Lining up with prior announcements, they have indeed dropped death metal influences in their original material, with the video below showcasing two originals with Austin singing clean with no hints of growling (the hockey mask was gone too.) Solid angle for the video, and while it is hard to hear Austin clearly, he can carry a tune (as fans of his acoustic song postings should know), but he needs to loosen up his stage presence a bit, and Tyler's drumming isn't as varied as it could be. Things are bound to improve with time though, so give the new look Brutaly Fatal a watch below!



Speaking of Tyler's local band projects, his goregrind solo project Crucify The Whore was back to their usual tricks on Friday night as well, with this video showcasing the debut of one of their new original songs (but due to the potentially offensive title, I won't give the name here.) Like his 2013 C.T.W. shows, this features Tyler on vocals and guitar with a drum machine for backing music, and while the minimalist nature and style isn't for everyone, there's more of a melodic and technical bent here, and he has some more crowd engagement too! It will be interesting to see how this flows with their upcoming disc "Welcome To Earth", and check out the new Crucify The Whore video below!



Finally for this post, Ringsnaps' goregrind duo project Rotopsy made their second live appearance on Friday themselves, and they were filmed playing an untitled new track as well! Also filmed in the vertical cell phone angle, singer Dylan Taylor is hard to hear over the bass, but like their show last October, there's not a lot of audible diversity beyond scattered growls and grunts, which is something he should work on (unless it's by design.) Give this new Rotopsy video a look below, and stay tuned for more from Blood Shed Productions as we hear it!



No videos yet (that I know of) from Friday night of Pillory, The Bear Hunters, Chase Wigmore, or the new Mike Haggith & The Din lineup, but that Strange Coyotes video IS forthcoming, so stay tuned for that soon, along with some major news concerning Thursday nights! Thanks everyone!

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