The Bear Hunters - "Collapse The Sun" Single Review!!

It's now time for our 160th monthly CD review at The Sault Metal Scene, and after a long stretch of new album reviews, nothing new that isn't in our anti-bias buffer period is left for local metal, hard rock, or punk bands, so we're dipping into the archives. I usually give precedence to artists who played live this month in some form, and as two members of this band played live with Handsome Sandwich at The Soo's Got Talent finals earlier this month, let's take a look at inactive local death metal quintet The Bear Hunters' 2014 single "Collapse The Sun"! Released on November 6th, 2014 as a pre-release teaser for their debut studio album "Eternal Hibernation" later that month, the single was produced at White Wreckords with producer/ex-Redundant bassist James White, and was sold & mastered through guitarist Mitch Sirie's own imprint Edge of Eden Productions.

"Collapse The Sun" features The Bear Hunters' classic lineup, including Chronic Demonic singer Nik Deubel, Mitch and ex-Bring The Fallen frontman Josh Stephney on guitar, Exploring Detritus bassist Justin Lam, and Mitch's Handsome Sandwich bandmate Johnny Belanger on drums. Copies of the "Collapse The Sun" single were exclusively sold on a limited print run of 50 CDs, each costing $2, and I have never seen one in the wild since 2014. Featuring three songs (well, one song in three versions) running for 11 minutes, let's begin this review, but be advised that my computer's primary external disc drive would not read this disc (possibly due to the paper label), so I had to play it off of a back-up drive.

All three songs are "Collapse The Sun", starting with the song as heard on "Eternal Hibernation", which I reviewed on the site in December 2014, so visit my original thoughts at this link. Lyrically about bringing doom and despair on the population (making the sun collapse would help in that goal!), I originally praised this song for its catchy groove-inspired structure, "sing-along" chorus, and solid instrumentation that sounds like the guys were having fun in studio. I also noted that the song lacked in technicality compared to newer songs included on the full album, and with the power of hindsight, the production quality is lacking compared to how their 2020 sophomore album "The Dead Testament" sounded. The raw, somewhat tinny audio won't be to everyone's liking despite solid performances, but it's definitely an early highlight of The Bear Hunters' all-too-short catalog!

The first alternate version is a live take of "Collapse The Sun", which was actually filmed by yours truly at The Roosevelt Hotel (now Reggie's West) when The Bear Hunters opened for 3 Inches of Blood there on July 9th, 2012. Those were the days, huh? Full disclosure, the band didn't inform me ahead of time that they were using my footage for this, but I was totally okay with it, and I was credited in the booklet. You can watch my original video at this link, but for this review, I'm going off of the audio copy from the CD as it was touched up in studio before the CDs were printed. This live performance is a little slower than on the studio version, but the performance is sound, and I can see why Mitch and crew chose it to represent the song on a CD! Of course, I was filming it for the SMS, on a worse camera than I have now, and had no clue that it'd be repurposed like this, so any static or clarity issues are apologetically noted.

The final track is the only one not accessible online, namely an instrumental demo of this song that Mitch had recorded in 2011, early in The Bear Hunters' run. The audio quality is honestly better, so if you ever wanted to do Bear Hunters karaoke or submit an audition tape if Nik wasn't part of a reunion, get this CD! Structurally, the instrumental demo is longer thanks to an extended outro, but has a higher tempo. This is a nice bonus that captures this fan favourite song in a new way, and because of the existing groove structure, it bounces along well while melting faces even without the lyrics! With all of that said, how would I grade a single of this kind? Honestly, this is more something for Bear Hunters diehard fans and/or completionists to track down nowadays. "Collapse The Sun" is one of my favourite songs of theirs, full stop, but the only exclusive content here beyond the packaging is the instrumental, as clean as it sounds.

I have no idea if physical copies of "Collapse The Sun" would be charged at a premium if they turned up at (say) The Rad Zone or if their $2 sale price would still be accurate, but with only 50 printed, this will be something ride-or-die Bear Hunters fans will surely want to keep an eye out for in case it turns up for sale. Solid bonus, but for casual fans, I'd say stick with the full "Eternal Hibernation" album and go from there if you choose. I hope you guys liked this month's CD review, and as for next month, projections look like I may be reviewing Chase Wigmore's new album "Is This End Of...?", which is slated to come out on October 30th, but due to proximity to month's end & the possibility of it being delayed, I held it for next month. Stay tuned for more on that album on the site soon, plus more news and notes in the coming days! Thanks everyone!