Where Are The New Albums? (March 2026 Update)

Here's our third "Where Are The New Albums?" post for 2026, but our monthly look at the current release whereabouts of upcoming local metal, hard rock, and/or punk albums is very much in a holding pattern for March. No new entries, no substantial updates, just touch-ups for dates and what have you, but seeing as the first album here is scheduled to be released next month, things will pick up on the a retail front soon! So, where are the new albums? Read on below to hopefully find out!

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The BAG - Sacculus

Rumoured Songs: "Eccentric Refuge", "Our Rock"

Background: Immediately launching in the summer of 2022 with original music in their back pocket, local metal trio The BAG (featuring With Gunfire and Jupiter Marvelous members) quickly released their first studio single "Eccentric Refuge" to major streaming services, with "Our Rock" following in 2023. The BAG didn't confirm that an album was in the works until October of 2025, when they revealed the cover artwork for their debut album "Sacculus" on their Facebook page, also confirming at the time that the whole album was already done mixing and mastering. These were the band's only proper updates about their own activity, album or otherwise, in the second half of 2025. It's not clear if their first studio singles will be included on "Sacculus", and if so, if they were re-recorded in last year's recording sessions.

Current Release Status: The BAG confirmed in December that they will release "Sacculus" on Saturday, April 18th via an album release party at Soo Blaster, though specifics on the track listing, price, and formats are all forthcoming. It will be great to see the fruits of Spencer, Austin, and Bradley's quiet work last year finally out for fans to hear in the spring, so stay tuned for more updates on the impending release!

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Bone Yard 225's debut album

Rumoured Songs: "F.A.F.O.", "Gypsy Spell", "Fuck!", "I Took A Pill In Ibiza" (Mike Posner cover)

Background: After months of teasers that they were planning to record original music, local southern hard rock cover trio Bone Yard 225 began releasing their own songs on major streaming services in July 2024, fifteen years after the pre-225 band debuted as a country cover quartet. Their first three singles (all recorded at their home studio) were posted online by January 2025, though it took until May for the band to confirm on their Facebook page that they were indeed working on a proper album. It's not immediately clear if their existing three singles will be included, but it's not a given, as Jonesy Land fans saw with "Zoom-Out". As of August 11th, it was reportedly "album tracking time", while this video from three days later shows bandmates Alex D'Ettore & Warren Reville recording backing vocals for their cover of Mike Posner's "I Took A Pill In Ibiza". That will be one of "a couple of covers" for the album, as confirmed by frontman Greg Simpson during recent concerts. "Fuck!" was renamed "The F Word" on streaming services in December, but it's not clear if the less explicit name will stick on the album. The band was still "in the studio finishing shit" as of December 4th, source here.

Current Release Status: In that Facebook post from May 30th, your local 225 said that "the album is coming along nicely", and they hoped to release it "by the end of 2025", but Greg has since adjusted the timeframe to "early 2026" when mentioning it during live shows. While singer/drummer Greg Simpson did release an EP with his old band Stiffler's Mom, it's hard to compare the release methods and schedule given that "The Demo" came out in 2004.  It is neat to see that Greg, Alex, and Warren are going all in on a studio album, and stay tuned for updates as they roll in!

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Chase James Wigmore - The Chaotic Rite

Rumoured Songs: "The Cities Alive & It's Angry"

Background: Ever the prolific artist & songwriter, local folk punk/extreme metal musician Chase Wigmore has been working on an extensive rock opera for years (once claimed to be a 33 part work), originally named "A Story About A Kid Named Todd". Worked on in between his other unrelated solo albums, released for sale or otherwise, Chase posted a lengthy elaboration of the rock opera in 2022, now titled "The Chaotic Rite", outlining its concept, recording plans, and long-term release timeline. Clips of songs have surfaced on his Facebook page, as have full songs not explicitly tied to the album, as well as the final artwork. In more recent promotion, Chase has hinted that "The Chaotic Rite" might be his final solo album as part of aims to focus on his personal life more than his prolific original material. Regardless, the final product has been pared down to 25-30 minutes.

Current Release Status: Chase elaborated on Facebook in mid-2024 that the album was 95% done earlier that year when the files "got trapped on my desktop's hard drive", and he had been unable to procure a backup of the material or recover the files as of that post. In any event, three of the full songs uploaded to Facebook in 2023 were clarified as not being planned for "The Chaotic Rite", but they could surface on a separate EP. Fingers crossed that Chase is able to save this album and put it out when able, especially given the years that he's put into the making of it!

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Convergence - In Bloom

Rumoured Songs: "Gemini", "In Bloom", "Breaking News", "It Ate The F&$%ing Moon", "Kraken Mara", "You Are Not Flesh", "The Ebb"

Background: Just over a month after releasing their sophomore EP "Dead And Dreaming", local progressive metal band Convergence announced in February 2024 that EP #3 would be named "Gemini", with its cover artwork being released at the same time. Teaser clips of most songs from the EP were posted on their Facebook page and their YouTube channel throughout much of 2024, but most prior media was wiped as they retooled as a full band, now including singer Stephen Gagnon-Ruscio and drummer David Peredun. Convergence worked in studio last year with producer Dustin Goodall at Unsalted Audio, documenting the sessions in Facebook "Reels", eventually confirming in concert that the EP (now named "In Bloom") is still in progress. Live versions of early instrumentals (now with vocals) have also been played in their early sets. A new version of "The Ebb" (first seen on their 2023 EP "One") was released to streaming services on Christmas Day.

Current Release Status: No clue, and given the complexity of their music yet their independent studio trappings so far, that could bode a quick or lengthy timeline for "In Bloom" to come out, depending on what angle you take. Since their modern studio cycle commenced in 2023, things have been relatively steady for Brendan and Jake as a recording act, and here's hoping that Convergence keep that up for their third offering! 

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Fort Creek's debut album

Rumoured Songs: "One For The Road", "Sweet Rosie"

Background: Background: Local southern/hard rock band Fort Creek have sporadically teased plans to record an EP since February 2020, but they wouldn't release any samples until almost two years later when they shared (now-deleted) clips of their original song "Hammer Down" on their Facebook page. The guys would play it regularly at concerts from 2022-2023, with studio sessions taking place in early-mid 2023 as well. After the departure of bassist Robin "Bones" Lee and drummer Anthony Fabiano in the fall of 2023, Fort Creek opted to abandon material recorded with them "as a show of good faith", and have been working on new material and rebuilding their studio over the past two years. Now featuring Phil Greco on drums, their first single (the acoustic "One For The Road") was posted online in January 2025, with the band confirming plans to now record a 10 song album at Jettison Studios prior to returning to live concerts. Their new single "Sweet Rosie" was being recorded as of August 31st, and a teaser of the song was posted to their Facebook page on New Year's Eve.

Current Release Status: Prior release timelines for their debut EP reflected their early 2020s lineup's material, and Justin, Shane, Bill, and Phil have largely kept things somewhat close to the vest prior to putting out "One For The Road". There are a lot of unknowns, especially given the 6+ years of production time and their decision to basically start over in 2023, and that this is a band that was primarily known for their work on the weekend cover circuit before their rhythm section left. It will be interesting to see how things develop, so stay tuned for updates!

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I hope you guys liked this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post, even if there wasn't a lot to say! This series will return on or around April 2nd, while our next monthly feature post will likely be this month's Defunct Local Band Profile scheduled for one week from tomorrow. That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

New Videos From Crush & A Woods Of Ypres Clarification!!

We made it to March 2026, so let's kick off the month with a post devoted to two different acts with a lot to get into, so here's what you should know!

It's been too long since we took a dive into Sault Michigan hard rock trio Crush's Facebook page, so what have the guys been up to in recent months? Well, aside from last month's show with About:Blank at The Savoy Bar, which neither band plugged on social media that I was able to find. On December 9th, they posted this brief video of an unidentfied band member greeting the statue of the French fur trader located inside Sault Ste. Marie's roundabout (that'd have been a bit of a climb up!), while another video from four days later during their St. Helen concert the previous month sees frontman Alex Traynor's surprise encounter with a lighter in an unexpected place. I can only assume that it was that road trip where Crush fell in love with the Big Boy restaurant chain, which became a running gag in posts over the winter! The next video sees guitarist Josh Fair play an acoustic Christmas song from December 19th.

Presumably titled "Randolph The Reindeer", this is jokey and somewhat ribald, so whether you want to watch it out of season or not, keep that in mind! Adding to the seasonality (apologies for the delay in getting to these), the Tarnished spinoff band posted a video called "What's Eating Santa Claus?" on Christmas Day, where a drunken and belligerent St. Nick has car trouble, drives to a gas station for smokes, goes to a bar, and gets into other antics. I would have to guess that the guys in Crush are familiar with the Trailer Park Boys, and it's an amusing video if you don't mind watching it 2+ months late! Lastly is their new 10+ minute video where the guys bake cookies, and to make things comically complicated, Alex is blindfolded, bassist Isaac "Iggy" Royer is listening to loud music on headphones, and Josh isn't allowed to talk (ie. see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil).

I'll let you guys find out how the cookies turn out, but there are definitely laughs to be had as Alex tries to tell Josh what visual signals to give Iggy so he can do the primary recipe, and hey, you don't see other local bands doing this! The video ends with the announcement of two upcoming concerts in May (at least these ones got announced!), but both will see Crush hit the road for downstate gigs in Ann Arbor and Battle Creek. Unfortunately, I can't embed the cookie one here because Facebook content matched the song that Crush used over the show announcements (Carly Rae Jepsen's "Call Me Maybe"), so give it a watch at this link, and here's "What's Eating Santa Claus?"!

Finally for today, I wanted to acknowledge the Milwaukee goth metal project 616's cover of Ozzy Osbourne's "Patient Number Nine" that made its way to major streaming services last month. On some streaming platforms, the song is labelled as "feat. Woods Of Ypres", which definitely caught fans of the defunct Sault Ontario blackened doom metal band by surprise. Things were clarified in a thread on the Woods Of Ypres FanClub Facebook group, where it was revealed that 2008-2010 Woods guitarist Bryan Belleau (who appears on "Woods IV: The Green Album") performed on the cover. This isn't a brand new collaboration, as Bryan previously covered "Wet Leather" and Type O Negative's "Everything Dies" with 616 in 2022, while this article plugging a podcast appearance from a year later indicated that Bryan's old Woods and Gates of Winter bandmate Steve Furgiuele was also remotely working on material with 616.

It's not clear how involved Steve is with 616 beyond that, but a comment implies that he (if not another former Woods alum) may be on the new cover too. Bryan unquestionably appears on 616's 2023 EP "The Living Dead Sessions" and he returned for this Ozzy cover, but why is it branded as featuring the band? Bryan (who lives and performs in British Columbia now) responded in the comment section, where he confirmed that while "it was filtered through Mama Gold" (late frontman David Gold's mom Esther), he "did not explicitly endorse Woods of Ypres at any point during the recording of this", and "the path forward will be solely my name". 616 frontman Matthew Lidwin said that "it was my ode to mention (the band) in the title" and "to pay my respects to the Gold family", and Esther defended Matthew herself, saying that "one song was 'influenced' by David's style", and that the "best compliment in life is when another, with admiration, copies a style".

When I gave my thoughts on the "Wet Leather" cover on the SMS at the time, I noted a definite HIM influence from 616, but Matthew's vocals on the "Patient Number Nine" cover really remind me Tobias Forge from Ghost. I don't get massive Woods of Ypres vibes from it (remember, Bryan only recorded one album with them), but it is definitely well performed and produced on all fronts, so if this seems interesting, definitely give it a listen below! I'd be a little more specific when tagging it in the future though, as Woods Of Ypres effectively = David Gold for most fans.

That's all for now, but stay tuned for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post next! Thanks everyone!