Plans have changed for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, as our randomly selected pick for this month's past band spotlight was local/Toronto punk cover supergroup Mikey & His Uke, who just posted their first new song in over a year last week! We'll look at the new song on the site in our next post. Obviously, they're not defunct (or inactive) anymore, so in the rare cases where my next selection comes back to life after being picked, I go with the closest alphabetical act who I haven't already looked at, and only one defunct or inactive local metal, hard rock, or punk act whose name starts with an M qualifies at present. As such, things are much more brutal & underground this time, so here's what you should know!
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Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario
Genre: Cybergrind/Gorenoise
Lineup:
Tyler "Ringsnaps" Gibson, all instruments
Audio/Video: This studio-only project released 9 demo albums onto their Bandcamp page between July 2013 and April 2021, with their final album "Hugz" teased as one of their few albums "that's good from start to finish". They also took part in two of label Blood Shed Productions' mid-2010s splits, both alongside their sister goregrind solo project Crucify The Whore, and select albums from their catalog were sold on CD at Blood Shed-affiliated concerts in the 2010s. A compilation of all of Malignant Neoplasm's songs was offered for a time in 2022, but never publically posted. Few of the MxNx-specific videos on the Blood Shed YouTube channel are more substantial than just re-uploads, but here is the (vertical) music video for "Needle Aspiration Biopsy" from their self-titled debut!
Info/Analysis: One of the many 1-2 man metal/grindcore bands signed to Blood Shed Productions in their 2010s heyday, Malignant Neoplasm differed from Tyler's better known band CTW via an electronica influence permeating their music, while their imagery and songs often reflected medical procedures and real photos of human anatomy (not NSFW but still graphic) until their 2018 relaunch, even going so far as to name an album that year "No More Medical Songs". Otherwise, they shared the same pig squealing vocals, short song lengths, lo-fi production quality, drum machine, and provocative song names and lyrics that CTW were known for. Malignant Neoplasm's original Facebook page was converted into CTW's (now-deleted) second Facebook page, and their replacement mostly posted new songs and teasers for them, plus the release of new t-shirts. Occasional hints and archival song shares continued from 2022-2025, and Tyler last posted teasers of music being played on a stereo in two March 2025 videos.
Like the bulk of Tyler's other 2010s metal acts, Malignant Neoplasm are critic-proof. You either like this style of metal for what it is, or you won't, and these fall in line with his "I play what I want and you don't have to like it" ethos. The techno influence and extra background noise helped distinguish them from CTW, even if it made them less amenable to live concert performances, and they developed a cult following similar to what CTW, Rotopsy, and others got at the time. I applaud Tyler for doing his own thing without apologies, but what you see is what you get. I still think that the Blood Shed guys could have coalesced into one great five piece death metal band, but give MxNx a listen above if you want to dive in!
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I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! The series returns on or around November 10th, and we'll have more news and notes on the SMS this week. Thanks everyone, and to our Canadian readers, in the event a new post doesn't come prior, I hope you have a happy Thanksgiving!
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