The Sault Metal Scene

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Tym Morrison), A New Local Band, Concert Previews, And More!!

2012-02-02T17:00:00.002-05:00

Let's keep this hot streak of posts and news at the SMS going tonight, so here's what's in store for this latest update! Today, we have news on an upcoming mini-series I'm planning to feature on the SMS, previews of this weekend's known metal and hard rock concerts (including a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for this weekend), a concert cancellation for this weekend, and leading things off, a new local metal band, so here's what you need to know! (And check out this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post below this one!)

A new Sault Ontario metal trio named Giwakwa has been launched, featuring some notable local faces in their lineup! Named after a legendary man-eating ice monster from native folklore, Giwakwa features guitarist Chris Page (who appears to have been in older local bands like Oblige & Mimik, among others), ex-Bring The Fallen bassist Nolan Rainville, and former Frightlight/Fitswitch drummer Larry Mousseau, though it's not known yet who's handling lead vocals. Apparently, they play stoner metal, which would definitely be interesting to hear more of in the area, but no media, photos, or possible concert dates have been revealed as of yet. Chris had inquired about possibly getting Giwakwa on the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands as a replacement act, but aside from that, I don't have too much else. The talent is there, and it's good to see these guys back with a new band locally, so hopefully we hear much more from Giwakwa as 2012 rolls along! Check them out and become a fan at their official Facebook & MySpace pages!

Now to this weekend's metal and hard rock concert previews (that I know of, fill me in if I'm missing any, especially concerning the I-500 Pub Crawl.) We're starting with a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for Saturday afternoon, as Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison will return to Bossy's Pub N' Grub for a fifth straight acoustic solo concert at the Pim Street restaurant! His latest weekly arrangement there appears to be going along nicely, and his wide array of solo unplugged covers will be sure to entertain as usual on Saturday! Admission, as always, is free (but buy something just in case), there is no age limit, and Tym will be on at 2:00 PM on Saturday afternoon. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! If you're in the market for some very entertaining hard rock music, and you're free on Saturday afternoon, then make sure you're at Bossy's for Tym Morrison's latest solo concert! Check the above links for more, and for a preview, here's Tym covering Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" at Bossy's last month!

The other major new concert this weekend on the heavier side of things is the return of Who Made Who to Sault Ontario! The prominent Ontario tribute to hard rock legends AC/DC will return to the area for the first time since Hempfest in August to deliver a night full of high voltage rock n' roll to fans at The Canadian Nightclub tomorrow night! Who Made Who are certainly no strangers to the Sault area, and if you've loved rocking out with them at their various other local stops, you should really enjoy their faithful rendition of AC/DC classics once again tomorrow night! Doors open at 10:00 PM for this show, you must be 19 to attend, and I'd expect a cover charge of around $5 to enter. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! This should be an awesome night of AC/DC hits from one of the best tribute bands around, so don't miss them if you can help it tomorrow night! For a preview, here's Who Made Who playing "Whole Lotta Rosie" in Sudbury in 2010!

Now, I was also going to cover Marquette hard rock quartet Nudge's planned return to The Satisfied Frog in Sault Michigan this weekend, but not long after I heard about them, Nudge moved the planned dates to Wally's Bar in Gladstone, Michigan, which is three hours west of the Soo. A reason for the move wasn't publicized, but the dates have been edited on their Reverbnation page. Hopefully nothing bad happened locally, as Nudge are a very entertaining band! Note that this doesn't mean NoXcape's scheduled shows this weekend (that Nudge replaced) are back on, unless I hear otherwise. Stay tuned for updates on both bands as they come in!

And finally for today, I wanted to tell you guys about a mini-series I'm planning to launch on the SMS next month. With all the buzz surrounding the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands on April 20th, it got me thinking about earlier battles of the bands that have taken place in Sault Ontario, and many of the more recent ones have been very well documented by local news media and the SMS. I thought it'd be interesting to flash back to many of the recent battles of the bands in a Battle of the Bands Rewind Mini-Series, and profile what happened at them, who played, what happened to the performers, and assorted other trivia and facts related to them. I'm planning to add one profile a week leading up to the Humane Society battle, and it will feature no less than 7 battle profiles (the Skid Row & Kiss battles, all 3 battles that Bring The Fallen won, the 2008 Case's Music battle, and the Scotties Tournament battle from 2010.) I'm aware this isn't comprehensive, so if you guys can help fill in any blanks related to absent battles (i.e. the old Bon Soo battles, the other Case's Music battles, among others), let me know! The problem with many of those is minimal information or coverage online for them, like complete performer lists, who placed where, and so forth. Also, many predated the SMS, so I couldn't have personally covered many of them, but if you can help at all to ensure we can include them, let me know!

Also, I'm probably not going to include Sault Michigan battles in this mini-series, simply because they're extremely hard for me to source and get details on, even newer ones. Still, feel free to send me details and information on some of them if you have anything, as I've heard of many across the river! Unless a new battle is added, this series will launch on March 2nd, with a new entry each week until April 13th. This series can continue to include older local battles when I source details on them (and this year's down the road too, of course), but the primary run would be this spring. Keep an eye out for this latest SMS mini-series next month, and help me add to the series if you can!

That's all for tonight, but stay tuned for more news this weekend! Thanks everyone!

Where Are The New Albums? February 2012 Update

2012-02-02T00:00:00.001-05:00

It's time to get into our first monthly feature post of the shortest month on the calendar, and as usual for the second day of the month, it's time for our latest "Where Are The New Albums?" post! This monthly feature takes a look at announced and (at least partly) recorded albums, CDs, and EPs from Sault Ontario musicians, including their posted songs, updates, recording progress, and when we could expect to see them in stores. This month, we're including one new album from an already included band, along with updates to all but three of the featured bands and albums below! If there's new info, the album's title is in italics, so read on below for all the current word and details on where these new albums are!
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April Eyes - Hollow Hope

Rumoured Songs: "Goodbye", "Left Behind", "The Only Road I've Ever Known", "Fall", "Reflections", "Obsession", Escape", "I Can't Let Go", "Absolution", "Hollow Hope"

Background: The oft-renamed April Eyes (previously known as By The Gods & April Eyes) is the solo project masterminded by Bear Hunters & Borderline Divine guitarist Mitch Sirie. He's been working on solo material for some time now, featuring him on all instruments, including vocals and bass along with the guitar tracks. Over time, Mitch has deleted older audio tracks and blog entries from this project's MySpace page, but continually replaces them with newer material, although some aren't planned for an imminent album release. Blog entries in 2011 have alluded to Mitch recording and releasing a solo concept album named "Hollow Hope", which he claims will be a "shocking" full length album, though it's been set back due to "circumstances". Featuring a mix of progressive & death metal with acoustic folk and indie rock, check out the newest samples of April Eyes/Mitch's solo material at his official MySpace page!

Current Release Status: I have no real idea. Honestly, this might not even get a release where it'd be on sale anywhere, but who knows! Mitch told me in e-mail conversations that he hoped to have a physical release of "Hollow Hope" last year, for what that's worth, but we're obviously past that point. The musical quality and songwriting on his material is very underrated, so I imagine that a release of "Hollow Hope" would get a good reception if it did come out! Though concrete data on it has been lacking for the later half of 2011, I'll keep you all posted if anything new is announced!
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As It Stands' third EP

Rumoured Songs: "Conception", "Big Problem, Little Lock City", "Rise Above", "One Last Chance", "One Less Than Wayne Gretzky", "Big Bucks, No Whammy", "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Ho", "Everything Terrible", "Oh Herm, Herm Delish", "Stay Together For The Kids" (Blink-182 cover)

Background: Continuing their high success levels since their local re-emergence in 2010, hardcore quintet As It Stands started recording sessions for their third EP with Metalworks Studios in Mississauga in July with producer Kevin Dietz. The sessions lasted just a few days, but from what I hear, a lot got accomplished! You can see some of the happenings from the sessions on their official studio vlog, which features some audio samples and video of some members recording their parts. The vlog also confirmed that their cover of Blink-182's "Stay Together For The Kids" was recorded in Mississauga, and that the songs will be part of an EP, not a full length album as was previously believed. It's currently unclear whether the songs they recorded at Stereo Soul Studios in 2010 and/or in Stoney Creek last year will be featured on the EP in some form. A new track, oddly titled "Oh Herm, Herm Delish" was posted onto SoundCloud last month, with studio copies of "Conception" & "Big Problem, Little Lock City" also being uploaded to their Facebook page last month, both of which you can stream at this location. Mixing is underway locally with Brendan Clace at Dimension Studios, so stay tuned for more news on this EP this year!

Current Release Status: As It Stands seem to have everything under control and well planned for the sessions and their studio work, and though nothing concrete has been explicitly said about it's release, things seem on track. A recent tweet on As It Stands' Twitter page said "#feb29th", so is that a hint towards anything EP-related? I don't know, but keep an eye out for updates, album information, and so forth, as I'm hearing good things!
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The Bear Hunters' full length demo

Rumoured Songs: "Bloodthirst", "Succumb To Eternity", "Dominate", "Overthrown", "Casualties Of War", "Collapse The Sun", "Render This Void", "Karma"

Background: Local death metal quintet The Bear Hunters formally announced that they'd begun recording for their debut EP "Bloodthirst" on May 10th, just days after adding guitarist Josh Stephney to the band. The news was broken on their Facebook page, but details were extremely scant following that news, and the recording plans fell dormant until January, when the band announced plans to record material towards a full length demo release. Plans are for this demo (which won't be "slapped together") to feature at least 10 songs, and drum recording for those 10 was done as of January 20th, with guitar and bass tracking next. This appears to be an independent production towards future better quality recordings, and plans are in place to release official band t-shirts along with the demos when completed. Stay tuned to the band's Facebook page for continued updates!

Current Release Status: If things stay on track, it looks like the late spring is a possibility, but who knows how long this could take, being a demo and independently produced. Time will tell, but keep an eye out for news on The Bear Hunters' first release!
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Gates of Winter - Perihelion

Rumoured Songs: "The Stars Call My True Name", "Edin Na Zu", "Dimensions", "Time Warp", "Wormhole Mechanics"

Background: Despite a hiatus from live concerts lasting over three years, Gates of Winter never broke up, and are slowly working on their follow-up to 2008's "Lux Aeterna". The first glimpse of the new album was unveiled in February 2010, when frontman/producer Lee Maines uploaded a snippet of their new song "The Stars Call My True Name" onto his YouTube channel, and he followed that up with more demo & rehearsal clips sporadically over the last couple of years, though all were later taken down. The band launched a new Facebook page in August 2010 to keep fans updated on the sessions, including the unveiling of a new song title, "Time Warp", while Sault native Jon Morrison was announced as the album's drummer in November 2010. On November 6th, bassist Steve Furgiuele confirmed in a YouTube video that the album, now titled "Perihelion", is planned for release in December 2012, with some older re-recordings likely for the summer. Another new song, tentatively called "Wormhole Mechanics", was previewed in this video that Lee uploaded as well last year. Most recently, Lee announced on January 10th that vocal recordings had begun, so keep an eye out for more updates as 2012 rolls along! Whether recordings made by former keyboardist Brian Holmes before he left Gates of Winter last year will be included on the CD or not is not known.

Current Release Status: Well, if the band says that "Perihelion" is coming out in December 2012, then I'm inclined to believe them. It's been a long road for them to get this album completed due to the members' own personal commitments, but until we hear otherwise, I'd say circle your calendars for a December 2012 release for Gates of Winter's long awaited second full length album! For now though, stay tuned to band pages for continued updates!
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Late & Loud's debut album

Rumoured Songs: "Midnight Man", "Down Like This", "Whipeout", "Never Again". "Love Letter Lockdown", "Whisper Of The Damned", "Live For Excess", "Fast As A Bitch"

Background: Late & Loud surprisingly announced plans to being recording a demo in January 2011, despite their relative newness to the scene at the time, not having launched internet pages until November 2010. Though described as a demo, Late & Loud's debut does appear to be packaged more like a standard album, with a photo shoot for it having taken place on February 26th (cl ick here to see the photos.) I believe this is being self-recorded, and updates towards recording sessions have been sporadically posted on Late & Loud's official Facebook page in recent months. Most recently, the band released a video indicating a likely release for last month, along with instrumental samples of three songs, and a confirmed tracklist of at least nine songs. Stay tuned to the above links for more details as they come in!

Current Release Status: Well, we're obviously past their goal for a release last month, but good art takes time. They've been working on this demo for months, and whether it will really count as an "album" or not, fans should be jacked up for it's release when it finally is finished! Check the above links for samples and news on Late & Loud's first demo!
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Lion Ride's first full length album

Rumoured Songs: "Stick It In", "Snail Trail", "Bang Bang, Bye Bye"

Background: Lion Ride entered the studio for the first sessions of their upcoming full length CD in April 2010 at Toronto's BWC Studios with producer Greg Dawson, same as when current & ex-band members recorded Detroit's last album in 2009. The band recorded four songs at those sessions, including "Stick It In", which was uploaded onto their MySpace page in May 2010 as a preview. The studio version of another original "Snail Trail" was later posted on BWC Studios' MySpace page, with another new song "Bang Bang, Bye Bye" featured as backing music in a longboarding culture video in June. Delays & external commitments (musical & personal) have delayed the album's progress, and Lion Ride would acknowledge & apologize for the sparse album updates on their Facebook page in November 2010 with this video featuring studio session clips set to "Snail Trail". As of February 2011, they were back writing new material presumably for this album, and a Facebook posting on March 7th hinted towards a return to BWC soon, but band news stalled again in late 2011, leaving a future release unclear.

Current Release Status: We've heard that Lion Ride's new album would be released at varying points from 2009-2011, but now pages just say it's "coming soon". I don't know when we'll see the album, what with the lack of real album updates recently, and unless recording sessions we don't know about happened, I doubt we'll see this come out until later this year, pending a return to activity. However, you can get a preview of the CD by checking out the studio versions of "Stick It In" at this location and "Snail Trail" by clicking here!
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Mike Haggith - Neighbourhood Watch

Rumoured Songs: "Stalking Booze & The Raptor", "Door To My Mind", "Nightmare On Reed Street", The Man In Green" (Black Hole Suns cover), "The Ballad of K2/K3", "The Day The Lights Went Out", "Limb Coast", "Neighbourhood Watch", "My Angel", "It Takes Time" (Black Hole Suns cover), "Room 822", "Fading", "Leon The Janitor"

Background: Scheduled to be local solo musician Mike Haggith's 45th full length studio album, "Neighbourhood Watch" (previously titled "Space 82" and "410 To Scotland) is scheduled to be a concept album based on differing human experiences. Originally planned for release on January 25th through Rotten Records, "Neighbourhood Watch" should be available on both mp3 and CD formats, and twelve tracks have been announced for it, including the already unveiled "Limb Coast", two covers of Kincheloe project The Black Hole Suns' songs (an instrumental mix of one of them can be heard here), and a mixture of previously heard & new material, though previously announced songs "Orion", "On A Cloud", "Who Owns Space 82?", and "Standing On The Edge" were removed from the track listing last year. Click here for complete album details, though note that recent illnesses have delayed the album's release. Stay tuned for more details on "Neighbourhood Watch" at this location, as Mike's generally good for keeping fans up to date on his upcoming solo projects!

Current Release Status: Originally planned to come out at varying points over the last two months, Mike confirmed last week that illnesses have caused it to be delayed to an unknown future date. That said, Mike has always been forthcoming & honest about album release details and hangups, so we should see Neighbourhood Watch soon when he gets better, but stay tuned in case anything changes!
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Riverin's self-titled debut EP

Rumoured Songs: "Attitude", "They Lost You", "A Cold Wind", "Deflower", "Valentine", "Raining In December", "Trenches", "Something Else"

Background: An industrial hard rock project from former Dirty Virgin & Silver Dream bandmates Matt Hicks and Matt Clement, Riverin slowly worked on their debut EP for much of 2010 at Matt Hicks' Quartertone Studios. The original recording sessions for this self-produced EP have finished, and it was said to be released "soon" as of July 2010. All six songs to initially be included on the EP are now featured on their MySpace page to stream for free! E-mail correspondence with Matt Clement last fall detailed how the band were looking into the CD development process to release the album in time for a planned CD release show in the future featuring guest musicians. Two new songs, "Trenches" & "Something Else", have been announced, with "Trenches" later posted online in May, but it's unclear if they'll be on the EP or not.

Current Release Status: Not sure, but things did seem to be on the right track, given that the EP's tracks are all recorded. The way it's sounding to me, the release of the EP will likely tie in to their debut concert as a CD release show, but we haven't heard anything official from the band in over six months, which is slightly worrying. Hopefully when it does come out, it will deliver a good package of unique music, so stay tuned for updates!
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Sykotyk Rampage - "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Stupidity" & "Jonathan , Your Music Sucks"

Rumoured Songs (GM): "Running", "Legend, "Garden", "Metal", "Rain", "Parley", "Wait", "Shrooms", "Dynamite", "Acreage", "McDonalds", "Alright"

Rumoured Songs (J): Unknown

Background: Originally announced in August 2010, "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Stupidity" is the second half of Sykotyk Rampage's conceptual "Genius Mushroom" series which delves "into the realm of hallucinogenic musical brainscans". Considered Sykotyk Rampage's 25th album, it was originally the first half of a double album before it was split from it's predecessor "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Intellect", which has since been posted online. One track named "Silence" was removed from the second "Genius Mushrooms" album's track listing at that time as well. Sykotyk Rampage recorded this album at River Front Recreation Studios, with sessions taking place at varying points over the latter half of 2010. The first "Genius Mushrooms" album (and 4 other companion 2011 releases) were all posted online in August, with just "...Thoughts of Stupidity" left, though the band began work on another new album named "Jonathan, Your Music Sucks" in January 2012. Stay tuned to band pages for coming updates!

Current Release Status: The original announced release date for this album was December 2010, but no new Sykotyk Rampage albums even made it online for free streaming until August. Oddly, the second "Genius Mushrooms" album is still unreleased despite the fact that 4 newer albums not even announced until August have came out earlier, though I'll note that the first "Genius Mushrooms" album isn't up for sale yet, despite it's posting online last month. With another new album now announced, I have no clue what the status is for the older unreleased material, but until fuller word comes out, click here to tide yourself over with the band's other five albums from 2011!
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Tym Morrison's second solo album

Rumoured Songs: "Moon Patrol", "Dungeons & Dragons", "Nag Hamedi", "The Reason Why", "The Dark Shred", "Song For Jen", "No Name", "Amy", "Lay It On The Line", "Someday", "How I'm Wanting You More"

Background: I honestly don't know a lot about the background for Tym Morrison's second album, but he has posted samples of nine songs for his "next album" onto the music player on his official website! The songs are all of good quality, and feature Tym in familiarly good form! Original information about recording sessions for his solo album are either very sparse or were made quite a while ago, so I don't know a lot about it, but the songs were likely self-recorded at Morrison Studio Productions with Tym on all instruments save for the programmed drums. Status updates on Tym's personal Facebook page last year have alluded to recent recording sessions and plans for a double album, but it's unknown if the above songs would all be included. It should be noted that many of Tym's more recent solo songs on YouTube have been either acoustic or comedic in nature, but I can't see many of the comedic ones making the cut for an album release.

Current Release Status: I don't have any real idea, but recent news about recording sessions and a double album are certainly promising! Hopefully Tym does release these songs in the near future, as his older samples and newer material deserve an audience! For now though, check out the above links to hear what he has to share that could make the cut!
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Woods of Ypres - "Woods 4.5: You Were The Light" & "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light"

Rumoured Songs (W4.5): "You Were The Light", "Falling Apart"

Rumoured Songs (W5): "Lightning & Snow", "Death Is Not An Exit", "Keeper of the Ledger", "Travelling Alone", "Adora Vivos", "Silver", "Career Suicide (Is Not Suicide)", "Modern Life Architecture", "Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye)", "Finality", "Alternate Ending"

Background: Recording for what was intended to be Woods of Ypres' fifth album took place in August 2010 at Stereo Soul Studios. Intended to be a 5 track EP, producer Miguel Gauthier's Facebook page kept fans updated on the sessions, along with Woods of Ypres' pages. Originally titled "Woods V: You Were The Light", release plans noticeably changed when the band signed with Earache Records in the fall of 2010. With the label desiring a full length follow-up to "Woods IV", frontman David Gold & guitarist Joel Violette hit the studio in August to record a new full length "Woods V" at Beach Road Studios in Goderich, Ontario with producer Siegfried Meier, who also kept fans up to date on these sessions via his Twitter page. After months of scattered song leaks & album hints, Earache leaked most of "Woods V" online (plus lyrics & the album cover) under sad circumstances in December following the passing of David Gold in a car accident on December 21st. Only the release-exclusive "Keeper of the Ledger" wasn't leaked, with a second "Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye)" track in it's place. Click here for full details on the album's release from Earache Records!

"W5" is still scheduled for a release though now pushed back to February 13th with an added two month delay for the American pressing. It will be released on CD, vinyl (along with an alternate producer's mix of "Finality") and iTunes. As for the "original Woods V", it's now considered "Woods 4.5", and though definitive release details for that EP aren't known, two songs were issued in a limited edition vinyl single release named "Home" through Practical Art Records in April (get ordering details here), and you can stream them at the band's CBC Radio 3 page!

Current Release Status: For "Woods 4.5", I have no clue. I originally thought it would either come out after "Woods V" or with it as a bonus disc, but knowing it's length and status due to the "Woods V" sessions, it may have depended on a release through David Gold's own Practical Art Records label, which is likely considered defunct following his death. Whether we ever see the remaining "W4.5" songs is up in the air, but how about "Woods V"? We should see it in 11 days, barring some new complication, so get ready for brand new Woods of Ypres material to hit stores in the next few weeks, as David would have wanted!
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I hope you guys enjoyed this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post! I project that next month's post in this series will be a bit shorter, as I figure we might see one or two new CD releases above this month, but time shall tell if that's true! Until then, we've got a stacked lineup of feature posts this month along with all the news, including our Defunct Local Band Profile on Sault Michigan hard rock quartet Shift one week from tomorrow, so keep an eye out! Stay tuned as well for more news and local concert previews to come over the next few days as well! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Sneaky Pete & The Valentine's Day Massacre) And Lots Of Battle Of The Bands Updates!!

2012-02-01T02:26:00.004-05:00

A new month is upon us, but the news sure hasn't slowed up, so here's what's on tap for this stacked news post! Today, we've got all the latest updates on the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands (including ticket details, who exactly "Inhumane Method" are, and much more), and kicking off this post, LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for this month, so here's what you need to know! (EDITED, 10:52 AM)

Local hard rock quartet Sneaky Pete will return to The Rockstar Bar next weekend! Three weeks after they last rocked the upstairs bar at The Algonquin Hotel, this talented group of local music mainstays will return to rock your winter blahs one week from Saturday with a wide array of hard rock and metal covers! They will be on at 10:30 PM on the 11th, you must be 19 to attend, and I'd expect a cover charge of around $4. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! It's nice to see Sneaky Pete book a new concert closer to their last one, as they've had a few lengthier breaks between shows in the past year, so if you missed them at The Rockstar Bar last month, seize the opportunity and go see them next Saturday for some great rocking covers! They were great when I saw them last month, just for reference! Stay tuned for any possible updates to this concert as they come in!

Also for new shows, the 42nd Roosevelt Hotel metal night is now official, but not for tomorrow night, instead taking place in two weeks on February 16th. This goes against the recent bi-weekly schedule for the metal nights, but whether they're now every four weeks or monthly now isn't known at present. That said, three bands are lined up for the second Thursday metal night at The Rosie of 2012, so here's who's lined up! Local deathcore quartet The Valentine's Day Massacre (formerly View To A Kill) will play their first concert of 2012 and first since changing their name last month, and they'll have new original songs to go along with it on the 16th, so make sure not to miss their return! Desbarats death metallers For All That Is Lost will also join them in their first local show of the new year, so be sure to welcome them with open arms and get ready to mosh during their hard hitting set of originals! Also lined up for this show are local extreme metal quintet Winkstinger in their first local concert since parting ways with singer Alan Wells in December, though the band has yet to reveal if he's been replaced yet. If I hear anything on their new singer, I'll be sure to let you guys know! Admission is free for this latest metal night, you must be 19 to attend, and a 10:00 PM start time is advertised. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page!

Rosie metal nights are always packed with quality music, and though the more sporadic recent bookings are a bit concerning, hopefully a great turnout is there on the 16th, hopefully including myself! I'm curious to hear Winkstinger's new frontman and the new VDM originals, for example. Stay tuned for updates on this and all other upcoming concerts as we hear news on them!

Third today, here's the latest updates on the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands on April 20th at The Grand Theater, as it looks like the lineup is now complete! From what I can gather, the full lineup is capped at 12 bands, and three new bands have been officially named among them, including Frightlight frontman J.D. Pearce's punk band T. Rex Manning and local classic hard rock quintet Turner Up! Barring a future concert announcement, this will be just T. Rex Manning's second show, following their debut at The Rosie in November, and I can actually tell you guys a bit more about their sound now too! Videos from their debut were posted onto Facebook by Brandon St. Jules, who filmed two punk songs that T. Rex Manning played at that show, which you can watch at this location. More of a traditional punk sound than Frightlight's horror-influenced material, and the dress clothes that they wore onstage is a unique touch (reminds me of Faith No More.) Not metal from my first glance, but I'm eager to hear them live in April at the battle! As for Turner Up, their inclusion is a bit surprising given their lack of originals (that I know of), but they're sure to deliver some hard rocking awesomeness at this battle of the bands, and it'll be interesting seeing them at The Grand Theater for a change too!

The 12th band is indeed classic metal quartet Late & Loud, who were finally confirmed this morning as competitors. Awesome to finally see them official for this show, so don't miss them in April! Note that the battle's website still lists "(To Be Announced)", despite a finalized lineup, so if that means anything, I'll keep you posted. Also of note, local blue Chinese metal crash punk quartet Sykotyk Rampage are on the battle lineup, but not as competitors. Though listed among the featured bands, Sykotyk Rampage confirmed on their own event page for this show that they are the warm-up & closing band bookending the battle itself, and will not be competing against the other performers. This is surprising given their success in local battles, including a 3rd place finish at the Sault College/Scotties Tournament Battle in 2010, but they should leave a good impression on the fans regardless of their involvement on April 20th! My other lineup note today concerns the band named "Inhumane Method" that are listed among the performers. As it turns out, the name was spelled wrong there, as they're actually called Inhuman Methods, and they're a newer metal quartet from Desbarats, meaning that two Desbarats acts will throw their hat into the ring for this battle! I don't know what they play or how they sound, but check their Facebook group out at the link above and keep an eye out for them & possible media of theirs over the next few months! Thanks to F.A.T.I.L. singer Tyler Sperry for the info on Inhuman Methods!

With the newest battle additions, the lineup now includes As It Stands, The Bear Hunters, F.A.T.I.L., Inhuman Methods, Late & Loud, The Moves, T. Rex Manning, Tea With Lincoln, Turner Up, The Valentine's Day Massacre, The Vertically Impaired, and Wishbone, with Sykotyk Rampage playing out-of-competition before and after the battle. This is the final lineup outside of any potential band dropouts, and if this holds up, we're in for a treat on April 20th! The other big news in terms of this battle is that tickets are NOW ON SALE! The tickets, which are $20, can be purchased at either the Sault Ste. Marie Humane Society on 962 Second Line East or at The Grand Theater on Queen Street East, though it's requested you call ahead at (705) 575-5687 if you plan to buy your tickets at The Grand, to make sure someone's there. Other details, like possible age limits, band order & performance times, and prizes are currently unknown, but stay tuned to the official Facebook event page for complete details as they come in! This is shaping up to be a huge event for a great cause, and hopefully the word picks up greatly as we get closer to the battle! Stay tuned for more on this event as it comes in!

That's all for now, but stay tuned to the SMS for new Woods of Ypres updates and more in our next news post, along with our latest "Where Are The New Albums?" post tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

Foothill Road EP Review!!

2012-01-31T16:04:00.000-05:00

With a new year upon us, its time to get back to our monthly CD reviews at the SMS for 2012, and for our 31st formal CD review on here, we're dipping into the local archives due to a lack of new local metal releases this month. That said, with this band's guitarist rocking the area earlier this month, we're taking a look at defunct local hard rock band Foothill Road's self-titled second EP today! Released circa 1996 during the band's Copetown, Ontario-based period, "Foothill Road" was recorded at Comfort Sound Studio in Toronto with producer Andrew St. George, who also mixed the EP at Le Mix in Etobicoke. The band's lineup on this EP includes all of their members from their first disc "Seventy", including ex-Spy Vs. Spy frontman Ken Luxton, Sneaky Pete guitarist Mario Carlucci, bassist & current Pittsburgh Penguins scout Ron Pyette, and drummer Rick Bain, alongside guitarist & backing singer Mark Oliverio (now of Boogie Fever), who had joined Foothill Road in between albums. This album is long since out of print, but contacting band members directly can probably score you at least the mp3 files, and the whole EP except "Red" is streamable on their posthumous MySpace page.

I've also posted the entire disc onto our YouTube channe l, so click here or search for it on YouTube to stream it in full! Each song title below is linked to my YouTube upload of that song as well. Slightly smaller than "Seventy" with only 5 tracks at around 22 minutes in length, let's start this review with the opening song, "Cavern"!

"Cavern" leads off the "Foothill Road" EP with an interesting drum & bass intro that has a clear funk inspired sound, but some nice guitar from Mario Carlucci (I think) adds some rock flavour after a little bit! The opening riff has a funk-ish hard round sound, and Ken Luxton's Billy Corgan-inspired vocals fit well overtop of everything, though the lyrics (which seem to tell of what goes on deep in the mind) do get fairly repetitive. Mario's guitar solo is solid here too, but too short for my taste. It's not a terribly heavy or long song, but it definitely fits as a 1990s hard rock number with some added spice, and Mark Oliverio's presence does help fill things out a lot, as the lack of a second guitarist on "Seventy" was a big flaw. Good song, and it starts off this EP on a rocking note! Second on the disc is "Fifteen", which starts slowly with a Western-tinged intro, almost like you're journeying alone down a long road, but when the full song kicks in, it's a slow hard rocker with a good beat! The verses are reserved with soft singing from Ken, but the choruses pick up in intensity, and there's a nice contrast between these parts of the track. Ken's singing doesn't seem as rangy as I've remembered, but it flows well with the song's pacing, and though it's different from what I'm used to from Foothill Road, I enjoy this track more than "Cavern"! A guitar solo or some more audible bass work would have helped though.

Third on this EP is the longest featured track, "Elliptical Foam", which immediately gives a spacey vibe amidst the hard rock sounds before slowing down into a dreamlike verse. Ken's soft singing is nice here, and Rick's drumming suits the backing music well, but I'm not feeling the chorus as much. I'd like to hear more energy in the vocals as a contrast, and Ken's vocals in general sound muddy and lost in the mix of the rest of the band in the chorus. The bouncy guitar work is effective though, and musically, this probably shows Foothill Road's collective talents the best here, especially late in the track when the energy and speed pick up considerably! Here, everything seems to be firing better, but the guitars do sound a bit chaotic at points. "Elliptical Foam" isn't a bad track, but it's definitely not my favourite on the EP, and I would have liked it to be a bit heavier with more varied singing while retaining the same overall atmosphere.

The fourth song is "Ignorance", which has probably the best and most well thought out lyrics on the EP! The song starts with a soft ballad-ish vibe, which maintains throughout the track, though the choruses are a bit more energetic. Ken's singing fits well, and the guitar playing is nice and flows effectively (including the guitar solo), but if you're looking for heavy material, this song won't appeal to you the most. I like it more than "Elliptical Foam" as a sheer song, and there's a hint of aggression late, but it's basically a straight ballad, and though it's not heavy, I enjoyed it for what it was! "Foothill Road" closes with "Red", which ends the EP much like it started, with a heavier short rock number, and it's probably my favourite song on this disc! The lyrics are very repetitive, but Ken's singing hits the range and aggression more like we saw on "Seventy", and Mario & Mark's guitar work is really catchy throughout this song! I like the guitar solo too, and there honestly isn't much to complain about with this track beyond an abrupt ending, the length, and the repetitve lyrics. This feels like a natural progression from "Seventy", plus a much needed second guitarist, and it's definitely worth checking out!

So how does Foothill Road's second EP compare to "Seventy"? It's better in some ways, and a step back in others. On the positive side, the production's better and clearer than on "Seventy", the addition of Mark Oliverio was extremely welcome to fill out their sound, and nothing on "Foothill Road" is bad, especially on catchy songs like "Red" and "Fifteen". Mario and Mark's guitar work is good, as is Ron Pyette's standout bass lines and Rick's dependable drumming, and Ken's singing fits the material well! However, I found that this EP took a more reserved and less heavy style than on "Seventy", and when you compare this material to songs like "Adam Ate Evil" and "The Edge", there's a noticeable dropoff in heaviness and, in some respects, energy. I especially noted it in Ken Luxton's vocals, which weren't nearly as rangy as they had been. Maybe it was new influences or their sound progression, but honestly, I have to say that I enjoyed "Seventy" more. The production and added guitars is great, and the songs are solid, but I found this EP was missing the bite that was on "Seventy". Still, this is a very good EP from a talented local band, and hopefully you guys check it out in some way to enjoy some 1990s hard rock as only Foothill Road could deliver!

I hope you guys enjoyed this month's CD review! So, what CD is being reviewed on the SMS next month? Well, for February, I actually have some fairly good ideas of what could be reviewed next, so here's how I'm breaking it down. If a new CD comes out next month, it will probably be a review of that CD, and for what could be next on the local metal front, click here for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post, which we're updating on Thursday. Mike Haggith's new album "Neighbourhood Watch" is a possibility, depending on how long the illness-related delays are, but I can't say for certain as of right now. I will say that next month's review will not be of a Woods of Ypres album ("Woods V" is tentatively lined up for March), Foothill Road's posthumous live CD, or (if I had it) Amethyst's debut cassette, as it'd be too soon from my last reviews of theirs. If nothing new comes out next month, I plan to review another of Sykotyk Rampage's 2011 albums, as it'll be six months since we reviewed "Zombiez" next month. If we cover the original crash band next, I'll likely review "Karrs" due to it's heaviness compared to their other 2011 albums, and I'm giving it priority as a review for the next month where nothing new in the local metal scene comes out due to the delay to review it. Stay tuned for more on our next CD review on the SMS over the next four weeks!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, Battle of the Bands updates, and more on the SMS tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Who Made Who & Late And Loud), Battle Of The Bands Updates, And More!!

2012-01-30T18:40:00.008-05:00

In what is likely our final news post of this month, we're squeezing in some more big stories before we post this month's CD review on the site tomorrow, so here's what's on tap for tonight! We've got the latest updates for the battle of the bands in April, some newly discovered videos from a Kewadin Casino metal concert last year, and leading off, some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for next month, so read on below for all the news, and check out this morning's post featuring big Garden of Bedlam news, more battle updates, and other assorted topics in the post below this one! (EDITED, 7:47 PM)

Ontario AC/DC tribute band Who Made Who are coming back to Sault Ontario THIS FRIDAY!! The local favourites will make their first appearance in the area since Hempfest on Friday night at The Canadian Nightclub with a night full of Brian and Bon-era AC/DC classics, and you know the'll put on a great show! Local bookers wouldn't bring them here so often if they didn't deliver, so if you want some high voltage rock n' roll this weekend, be at The Canadian on Friday night! I apologize for not having this earlier, as Who Made Who referenced this show on their Facebook page a week ago as their "next stop", but no venue was credited, so I held off until fuller word came my way. Doors open at 10:00 PM for this show, you must be 19+ to attend, and though no cover charge is announced, I'd expect one, so bring at least $5. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! This should be a great night of AC/DC hits and favourites, and with a talented and well-suited tribute band to rock it all out for their fans, you won't wanna miss Who Made Who on Friday if you're an AC/DC fan! Stay tuned for more on this show as the week rolls on!

Also in new concerts is a Sault College Campus Watch fundraiser pub at Coch's Corner on February 25th, and local classic metal quartet Late & Loud will headline this show in their Coch's Corner debut! Barring a new show announcement beforehand, this will be their first concert of 2012 & their first show since the fall, though 3/4s of Late & Loud did play a show as General Striker last month. Note that despite their presence on the Facebook event page and the preliminary event poster, local hard rockers Half Past are NOT playing this show. Guitarist Alain Fletcher confirmed their non-involvement with me earlier today, and huge thanks to him for letting me know! A post on the event page implies that "the other band" hadn't confirmed due to a lack of practice space, but whether Half Past was the implied band or not isn't known. Still, Late & Loud should deliver a great concert, no matter what! Unlike most non-Halloween concerts at Coch's Corner, tickets for this event will be $10 (it is a fundraiser pub, after all), you likely have to be 19 to attend, and the start time is (oddly enough) 7:30 PM. Reportedly, there will be door prizes as well, but fuller details (like where to buy tickets) are not out yet. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! This sounds like a very interesting event for a solid cause, so keep an eye out for more updates as I hear them, and apologies again to the Half Past camp!

Next up, here's the latest updates on the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands on April 20th at The Grand Theater, as two more bands are confirmed for the lineup, and both are seemingly new! One, I know stuff on, and they're a new blues rock quartet named The Moves. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they feature prolific local bassist Nathan Bouliane (ex-As It Stands, The Outside Lights, etc.), frequently seen local singer/guitarist Josh McNally (Deter, The Crossed, etc.), and Blackwater alumni Cody McMillan & Dave Pihlaja on guitar & drums respectively. Talented lineup, and though I don't believe they'll play a hard rock style, they have metal alumni in their ranks, and some notable Battle of the Bands competitors from recent years! Notably, Nathan took 1st place and "Best Bassist" at the 2008 Case's Music Battle of the Bands as a member of Stillbroke, and Blackwater (with Cody & Dave in tow) won the Sault College/Scotties Tournament Battle in February 2010, so don't sleep on The Moves come April 20th, as the talent is there! The other newly announced band for this battle is a new band named Inhumane Method, of whom I know nothing about. Nothing public about their identity has came my direction, and despite a metal-implying name, I can't say anything definitive on them yet. If you can help identify who Inhumane Method are, e-mail me at robertfigures@hotmail.com!

This brings the confirmed battle lineup to 9 bands, making it the biggest Sault Ontario battle of the bands since the Kiss battle, and there's still more bands to come! I'll note that Late & Loud are still not advertised for this battle, despite the band's indications that they registered. I confirmed with guitarist Jonathan Tiberi earlier today that they entered and were looking into why they weren't advertised yet, so hopefully this gets resolved soon! Stay tuned for more battle updates as they come in!

And finally for today, remember when we mentioned that the Castlegar, British Columbia internet radio station Energy Rock Radio (which was locally based from 2008-2011) had shut down? Well, the station may have ended, but some local news from Energy Rock Radio has still found it's way onto my radar via some videos on the ERR YouTube channel! Before moving out west, Energy Rock Radio creator and DJ Ryan Kaarlela attended the Cinderella concert at The Dreammakers Theater at Kewadin Casino on April 14th, 2011, and he posted 7 videos from the show onto YouTube in June! The videos include short clips of "Shelter Me", "Heartbreak Station", "Second Wind", and "Push Push", along with longer videos of Cinderella playing "Somebody Save Me", "Nobody's Fool", and "Don't Know What You Got (Till It's Gone)", so click each link to see Ryan's videos! I think these slipped my radar for two reasons: They weren't posted until two months after the show, and Ryan didn't tag the Soo or Kewadin Casino in the videos, so they weren't visibly from the local concert on first glance, and I apologize for having these so late.

The videos are good quality, and Ryan's angle on the right is fairly close, but the audio has scratchy moments, some videos are too short, and singer Tom Keifer isn't too clear on the recordings. Still, these are nice videos, so check them out at the above links, give Ryan's new "Energy Rock Radio Show" a listen on Hard Rock Radio Live on Saturday afternoons, and here's Cinderella playing "Somebody Save Me" in April!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our review of Foothill Road's second EP TOMORROW in our likely final post of January 2012! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Garden of Bedlam), Battle Of The Bands Updates, And Much More!!

2012-01-30T01:00:00.001-05:00

The news keeps rolling in fast and furious, and we've got a lot of it to get to today, so here's what's on tap! We have some assorted shorter stories from the last little while, the latest updates for the upcoming Battle of the Bands (including a newly added band's change), preliminary word on an apparent major upcoming concert, and a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, but first, here's news relating to some great local press on a local band and their frontman, as it links to the new show!

The Sault Star's article on Garden of Bedlam singer Erik "Buzz" Boissineau is now online on The Sault Star 's website! Written by Brian Kelly and entitled "Singer finds peace in Garden of Bedlam", the article features Buzz's thoughts on the imagery and themes of the band's new album "Everything Will Die", their studio work, their victory at 2009's Kiss Battle of the Bands and the experience opening for Kiss at The Essar Center in August 2010, and Buzz's musical journey before joining Garden of Bedlam, including brief mentions of his old bands Barfly and Sourcecode. The article also mentions that Garden of Bedlam hopes to do some touring this spring in Ontario, which would be awesome if it happens on schedule! This is a nice article with some good insights on both Buzz's music and Garden of Bedlam's local rise, and aside from spelling Kiss drummer Eric Singer's first name wrong, there's no glaring errors from what I can see. Buzz definitely is a nice guy deserving of the press, but I was hoping for either some more insight into his career or some more integration of the other members of the band for the article. Still, it's some well deserved press all around, and check out the full article at the above links!

That's not all from the article of note from Garden of Bedlam, as it also revealed their next concerts at the end, so here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!! According to the above article, Garden of Bedlam will bring their metal onslaught back to The Rockstar Bar on Saturday, March 10th for a headlining concert there! This will be their first local concert of 2012, their first since their CD release show on Boxing Day, and their first show at The Rockstar Bar in nine months, but at least this isn't as huge of a wait for their next show as some of them have been! Garden of Bedlam haven't confirmed this concert on their pages yet, but if The Sault Star's mentioning it, then it can't be too inaccurate. Admission will be $5, an 11:00 PM start time is listed, and I imagine this is a 19+ event, but other details (like potential openers) haven't been made public yet. Check the above links for more details! It's nice to see Garden of Bedlam back for another headlining concert, and you know it'll be a big show no matter what, so stay tuned to the SMS for more details as they come in!

The other new show mentioned in the Sault Star is not completely confirmed yet, so I won't call it yet until official word comes out, but Garden of Bedlam are also listed for a David Gold memorial show at a to-be-announced local venue on April 7th! This appears to confirm that a local tribute concert in memory of the late Woods of Ypres frontman is in the works, and I have heard rumours relating to it and possible bands to perform on it, but until something completely official is released by promoters or band-linked sources, I won't officially go into any detail. Stay tuned though, because I have a feeling this will be a can't miss event!

Next up, here's the latest updates on the Sault Humane Society Battle of the Bands on April 20th at The Grand Theater! Two more bands have been confirmed for the lineup of this long awaited battle, including local deathcore quartet The Valentine's Day Massacre.... wait, who are they? They're actually the band formerly known as View To A Kill, who announced that they changed their name yesterday. A full reason for the name change wasn't announced, but the band said that the View To A Kill name "served them well". Maybe there was a conflict with a similarly named other band, maybe it's to better suit their material, who knows. Personally, I find that the name's a downgrade and doesn't really match their sound, but their music is still brutal, so stay tuned for more from The Valentine's Day Massacre as it comes in, including their next show next month when details come out! The other newly confirmed band is local rock quartet Wishbone (featuring local metal band alumni Glen Thomas & Steven Flint), who'll play their first local battle of the bands since the Kiss Battle finals in 2009! Not too heavy, but they're a very talented band, and they should do real well in April!

Notably, Late & Loud have yet to be confirmed for the battle despite the Facebook posts mentioning their involvement, but stay tuned if I hear anything for or against them playing. Veteran local bassist Nathan Bouliane's new band The Moves have also submitted an entry, but they've yet to be added to the lineup either as of this writing. This is shaping up to be a very cool battle of the bands, and hopefully everyone turns out to support their favourite bands and rock out! There's still openings for new bands, so click here to register to try and play at this battle, and stay tuned for more updates!

And finally for today, here's three assorted shorter stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by band or station name:

Formerly-local internet radio station Energy Rock Radio has shut down, and has been replaced by "The Energy Rock Radio Show" on the New York internet station Hard Rock Radio Live as of January 17th, running Saturdays at 12:00 PM. A reason wasn't announced, beyond owner Ryan Kaarlela saying it was "time to move on." It sucks to see ERR as we knew it end, but hopefully Ryan makes the new show a success, and hopefully you guys continue to tune in! As a result, I've replaced it's now show-centric link on the SMS with the old ERR Facebook group, but do check out the new show!
Local grimecore trio Shit Liver are among numerous bands playing at this year's Touch Of Death Metal & Punk Festival in Cochrane, Ontario (6 hours north of Sudbury) from June 29th to July 1st, joining notable bands like Hallows Die, Empyrean Plague, and Thekillingfield on the massive lineup. Click here for more details! This should be a great festival for Northern Ontario metal, as always, so keep an eye on it!
According to their Facebook page, local "blue Chinese metal crash punk" quartet Sykotyk Rampage recorded material towards a new album called "Jonathan, Your Music Sucks" at River Front Recreation Studios on Friday! I'll note that they still have their two "Genius Mushrooms" albums to release (the first one is online but not on sale), but no matter what the future release schedule looks like, stay tuned for updates!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for our last feature post of January (our review of Foothill Road's second EP) tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Battle Of The Bands), New Videos, And More!!

2012-01-29T15:55:00.002-05:00

We've got even more news today, and leading off this post is a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for a notable local concert type's return after a lengthy absence from the Sault Ontario concert scene! That, plus some additional facts relating to it, are the main story of this post, but some new videos from a pair of local solo musicians are also featured here, and check out news from As It Stands, some Sault Michigan-area metal bands, and more in the post below this one from this morning. Now, to the new stories, so here's what you need to know!

For the first time in almost two years, a Battle of the Bands is going down in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario this spring, and metal bands will be a part! This battle is a fundraiser event for The Sault Ste. Marie Humane Society, and it will take place at The Grand Theater on Friday, April 20th. Five bands have been confirmed so far, including three metal bands, those being local hardcore quintet As It Stands, local melodic death metal band The Bear Hunters, and Desbarats death metal quartet For All That Is Lost, who all should deliver solid sets as they compete at this battle! Various Facebook posts from band members have indicated that Late & Loud will also be competing, but official sources have yet to confirm their addition. Joining them are local funk rock trio The Vertically Impaired and local acoustic duo Tea With Lincoln, with more spots presumably open for more bands. If you or your band want to enter this battle, fill out the registration form at this location! (There doesn't look like there's a registration fee.) Full details are not out yet for this battle (such as band limits, performance times, prizes, and possible age limits), but the battle will run from 7:00 PM to 11:00 PM on April 20th, and the winner will be chosen by audience vote, so make sure your fans and friends are in attendance if your band is playing! Admission will be $20, which sounds steep right now, but this should be well worth it, especially if the band lineup gets a lot larger!

For more details on attending or entering, visit the above links or the Facebook event page, and if you wish to volunteer your time for this event, e-mail hilary_fan_699@hotmail.com. It's great to finally see another battle of the bands in Sault Ontario (and a new concert at The Grand), as it's been way too long since the last ones! Here's some interesting facts about band battles to share with you guys, while we're on the subject: The last Sault Ontario battle of the bands that I know of was Downtown Showdown in May 2010 at The Oddfellows Hall, which was won by Bring The Fallen in their 3rd battle victory in four tries. Frontman Josh Stephney now plays guitar in The Bear Hunters, but will his good luck at battles of the bands carry over in April? Fans may also remember the YMCA Battle of the Bands which took place at The Grand Theater in March 2009, which featured both Josh and his current Bear Hunters bandmate Justin Lam (then Operation: Killdozer's bassist) among the competitors, along with current Late & Loud members Benn Garside & Josh Hatherly as members of the blues rock quartet The Glass Statues, so there's some familiar faces from past battles of the bands in the area this time around! Of course, stay tuned to the SMS for updates on this battle on April 20th as they come in, cause it's shaping up real well!

We'll close today with some new videos, starting with two more new solo performance videos from ApocalyptiCDistroyeR frontman Jesse Middaugh! Continuing with his recent trend of posting performances on electric guitars, Jesse's newest videos were posted onto the band's YouTube channel on Wednesday, and one is a cover of part of Metallica's new song "Hell & Back"! It's a little rough and not very long, but it's cool to see Jesse learn it so soon after it's release last month, so check it out at the above link! Embedded below though is a 2 minute intrio to an original song named "The Predator" which has some promise, but it needs to be filled out and a bit less repetitive. Good start though, so check out Jesse's performance of "The Predator" below, and much more at the above links!

And finally, here's the latest solo original song from local guitarist Mike Cliffe! As uploaded onto his YouTube channel yesterday, the song's called "Snow Ghost" and Mike describes the song as "something a little different", with a soft beginning like snow, but it ends hard. The song has sort of a grand organ-ish feel early as well, with accompanying nighttime winter footage on a grainy camera. True to the description, the end is heavy, but some of the guitar licks sound a bit out of place with the backing riffs. It's a solid track though, so give "Snow Ghost" a look below, with much more from Mike at the above links!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news this week (including likely Battle of the Bands updates and the Sault Star article on Buzz from Garden of Bedlam), our review of Foothill Road's second EP, and next month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post! Thanks everyone!

As It Stands EP Updates, New Videos, And More!!

2012-01-29T01:47:00.002-05:00

Here's some more news and notes for this snowy Sunday morning in the Sault Ste. Marie area! Today, we have the latest news on a prominent local band's upcoming EP, new videos from two Sault Michigan-area metal bands, and some more assorted news from the last little while, so here's what you need to know!

As It Stands' third EP is now in the mixing stages, if you haven't heard yet, and a couple sources are dropping hints about it's progress and future news towards it's release! Brendan Clace at the local recording studio Dimension Studios has been working on the mixing for this EP since December 22nd, which he's said that he's been "stoked" to work on numerous times in the past while. Guitar tracking reportedly started on Boxing Day, and he said most recently on Thursday that he wished you could hear "the awesomeness" coming from his speakers, so click here for his recent updates. Sounds good to me, hopefully all the hype that Brendan's been building up isn't for not! Band sources have been noticeably quieter about the EP, but more cryptic at the same time in recent updates. On Thursday, the band posted a status on their Facebook & Twitter pages simply saying "#feb29th", which happens to be a Wednesday and the last day of February. Does this imply a possible release date for the EP, a new concert, or both? I don't know enough to say, but if they're putting a hashtag before it, that could be encouraging future reposts of it, so take that for what it's worth. Stay tuned for more future updates on As It Stands' next release, including updates to our next "Where Are The New Albums?" post on Thursday!

Next up, here's the latest videos from Eckerman, Michigan metal trio Swampghas, who've posted two new videos onto the Werehold Records YouTube channel on Wednesday. One is just an audio track from their forthcoming album "The Raco Tower Incident", entitled "How Can I Miss You, If You Don't Die?", so click the song title to hear it. J.R. Johnson (we now know his last name) has some solid charging guitar work here, and Jason Mills' aggressive singing fits nicely too on this song! He did tell me a while back though that the Swampghas album is entirely comprised of songs under 3 minutes long, so the short length is by design, but they pack a lot of headbanging goodness into the track, so check it out at the above link! The other new video is their music video for their song "Bog", and it's embedded below to check out! This was posted on YouTube in unfinished versions before that I was requested not to post yet, but the full version with vocals is online (for now at least.) How does it sound/look? It's very dark and grainy, but therein lies an amusing storyline and some solid heavy metal, and it's worth checking out all around, so give Swampghas' video for "Bog" a look below, and stay tuned for more Swampghas updates as they roll in!

Also new for videos from local bands across the river is the latest video from Sault Michigan/Grand Rapids epic metal quintet End of Existence! We last heard from them last month when they posted their second "Making Of..." video onto their Youtube channel, but it was since made private for unannounced reasons. In it's place (as uploaded on Thursday) is a shorter "2012 edit" of it that now also features a preview of their new original song "The Elements", which the band describes as "genre-defining". That takes up the first three minutes of the video, and how does it sound? From what I can hear, it sounds solid and in line with the aggression and creativity of their earlier originals, but I'm curious to hear the full track! The remainder of the video consists of about 2/3rds of the first "Making Of... (Part 2)", which features everything from Giles home improvements to rehearsal footage to shots of keyboardist Craig Harrison jet skiing, and for the record, I think the more entertaining footage from the previous version of this video remains intact on the new version. It's worth a look (and listen), so check out End of Existence's new-ish video below!

And finally for today, here's three assorted shorter news stories from the last little while. As usual, these are in alphabetical order by band name:

Kincheloe metal band Chained Memories have confirmed their current lineup's instrument positions, with guitarist Sean Roush moving to bass, Ryan Nicklas remaining on guitar, and Mike Rynberg taking on vocals as well as drums. Hopefully this holds well, I'm curious to hear what they've got going musically! Check the above link for more!
Garden of Bedlam frontman Erik "Buzz" Boissineau will be the subject of a Sault Star article in tomorrow's paper! A preview entitled "Singer finds peace in Garden of Bedlam" is now online to check out, which implies that the article will explore Buzz's search for musical bliss and Garden of Bedlam's local success. Watch out for the full article tomorrow!
Sault Ontario metal quartet Late & Loud now have their own Twitter page, where they've indicated that they now have new stage lights and no less than 3 smoke machines for future concerts. Good to know, so follow them at the above links for continued band updates on Twitter!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our review of Foothill Road's second EP by Tuesday, along with more news as it comes in! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Cavo), Tym Morrison Concert Preview, And Much More!!

2012-01-27T16:48:00.003-05:00

Today's news post is full of news and notes from the last little whole, so here's what's on tap on this Friday evening! Below, we've got this week's classic video, the latest updates from Hammerspace, and a concert preview for this relatively quiet concert weekend, but leading things off today, here's a major LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for this spring!

Allstar Promotions are back in the mix for major local concerts at Kewadin Casino, and they have a package of high profile rock acts coming to The Dreammaker's Theater on Friday, April 6th! Headlining this concert will be St. Louis hard rock quartet Cavo, who are best known for #1 mainstream rock single "Champagne", but they have lots of other newer songs to go around for fans from their forthcoming new album "Thick As Thieves"! I think "Champagne" is extremely overplayed, but Cavo's other songs are good and catchy for the most part, and they should pull in a solid crowd on April 6th! Joining them will be Norwood, Ontario post grunge rockers My Darkest Days, who were originally slated open for Buckcherry & Papa Roach at Kewadin last March before frontman Matt Walst fell ill. You're bound to remember My Darkest Days for recent hits like "Pornstar Dancing" and "Casual Sex", and it's nice to finally see them play locally after missing their last opportunity! I'm personally not a fan of theirs, but I know many of you enjoy their stuff, so hopefully they put on a good show! Opening this concert will be Vancouver hard rockers The Veer Union, who are slowly making waves in the North American rock scene with tracks like "Seasons", which made the top 10 of the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart, so keep an eye on them at this concert!

This concert goes down on April 6th at 7:00 PM, it appears to be all ages, and tickets are NOW ON SALE for just $22.50, which is quite a bargain for this package of bands! You can buy tickets online at this location, in person at the Kewadin box office, or by calling 1-800-KEWADIN. As of right now, the first four rows are sold out, but plenty of tickets are still available, so get them A.S.AP.! It's nice to see some more big rock acts hitting the area, and it's also awesome to see Allstar Promotions bringing a big show back to Kewadin Casino after almost a year's absence, but hopefully the contract issues and whatever else are all worked out, so they can bring us more quality concerts! Stay tuned for updates on this show as they come in, and get your tickets A.S.A.P.!

Now to a weekend concert preview, and in an otherwise quiet weekend on the local metal scene, there is some hard rocking to be had, specifically on Saturday afternoon, as Tym Morrison returns to Bossy's Pub N' Grub! This will be the Caveman Morrison frontman's fourth straight Saturday matinee show at the Pim Street bar & restaurant, and you know he'll have a nice long set's worth of acoustic hard rock covers in store for attendees tomorrow afternoon! Besides, until Caveman Morrison's next show, this will fill the gap nicely! Admission is completely free (buy something just in case though), Tym will be on at 2:00 PM, and I believe this is all ages. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! It's good to see Tym's new weekly concert arrangement succeeding, and hopefully a good crowd turns up tomorrow to see his proficient and entertaining unplugged covers! For a preview, here's Tym covering Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" at Bossy's last weekend!

Third today, here's the latest from Sault Michigan metal band Hammerspace! Firstly, the band has re-added guitarist Denny Breslin to their lineup, making them a quintet once again, as confirmed on the band's Facebook page on Sunday. As a result, frontman John Bergeron will trade his guitar for a keyboard full time, while also remaining their lead singer. Denny was briefly a member of Hammerspace in their 2010 infancy, but you're more likely to remember him locally from his runs in Half A Man & Bent Rollercoaster. Its good to see him back in a local band, and hopefully his skills help Hammerspace as they continue their resurgence this year! The other band news mostly relates to their recent jamming in Rudyard, but nothing too prevalent about onstage return or anything similar has came in a while. Notably, there was brief fears about a breakup due to the fact that they removed their name from their Facebook page earlier this week, but the band confirmed that it was just to be mysterious, and their name & status are unchanged. Hopefully we hear much more from Hammerspace shortly, so check them out at the above links for all current updates!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! With a largely quiet weekend for concerts, I thought I'd dip into the archives for a band to post a video from, and who better than Woods of Ypres? Despite the unfortunate passing of David Gold last month, there's still plenty of videos of Woods of Ypres from their heyday that deserve a wider audience, and none made more sense to start with than the music video for their 2007 song "The Northern Cold"! Released on April 1st of that year, it was filmed in a Northern Ontario forest that February, but it hasn't been seen on YouTube in a few years following David's deletion of it from his YouTube channel. I don't know whether it was due to his dissatisfaction with the video/song, to promote newer material, or something else, but it's a nice video that instantly evokes feelings of a cold northern winter, and "The Northern Cold" is a solid black metal song that should have been in their later setlists more often! This features the band's 2007 lineup, including David on vocals, guitar, and studio drums, Woods of Ypres' then-producer Dan Hulse on bass, and Jessica Rose on the keyboard, with live guitarist Shawn Stoneman and live drummer Chris Mezzabotta filling out their lineup for the video.

I ripped this video from http://rocktube.us/SYt1VWCj0Tx/WOODS_OF_YPRES__The_Northern_Cold.html where it was originally uploaded by RockTube user knjaz_abbadon on September 10th, 2008, though I cropped it to it's original HD dimensions & boosted the colour a bit after downloading it. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to Woods of Ypres & knjaz_abbadon, I'm just trying to share this music video with a wider audience like it deserves! This is a nice video that should be seen, so give Woods of Ypres' video for "The Northern Cold" a look below, stay tuned for more from Woods of Ypres as it comes in, and R.I.P. David!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news this weekend, as well as this month's CD review (likely of Foothill Road's second EP!) Thanks everyone!

Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile: Age Of Days

2012-01-26T20:49:00.003-05:00

It's time for our second-to-last monthly feature post of this month at the SMS, and as usual, this is our latest Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile! As usual, we're profiling a band from outside of the Sault Ste. Marie area that features a local musician in their past or present lineup, and though this band hasn't done much publically yet with their local member, they've sure got a lot to say so far! Read on below for this month's profile!
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Age of Days (Fredericton, New Brunswick)

Lineup: (Saultites in RED; ex-members in italics)

Tim Morrison (vocals/guitar)
Brent Alvey (guitar)

Jonny Fabbro (guitar)
Matt McLaughlin (bass)
Mike Arnold (drums)

Jamie Norrad (guitar)
Jon Price (guitar)
Brad Bailey (guitar)
Pat Pelletier (drums)

Official website: http://www.ageofdays.com/
Official MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/ageofdaze
Official Facebook page (1): http://facebook.com/pages/Age-of-Days/304810506204631

Official Facebook page (2): http://facebook.com/pages/Age-Of-Daze/181470656 81
Official Reverbnation page: http://www.reverbnation.com/ageofdaze
Official Twitter page: http://twitter.com/ageofdaze

Local Info: The only local member of Age of Days is prominent local musician Jonny Fabbro, who's probably best known as the singer and guitarist for the defunct local hard rock band Inside Spiral! In their mid-2000s heyday, Inside Spiral were a prominent sight at numerous local concerts, including high profile performances in some local music competitions, before their demise circa 2006. Aside from a brief reunion for the Kiss Battle of the Bands in late 2009, the most we've heard locally from Jonny since was in his short lived solo project, which produced some nice quality solo material circa 2006-2007 before that fell dormant. After some extensive searching in the Toronto area for a higher profile band in recent years, Jonny was enlisted in Age of Days last fall, and you never know when they might make an appearance in the Soo!

Band Bio: Formed in 2005 in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Age of Daze (now Days) were started by local cover band members Tim Morrison, Jamie Norrad, and Matt McLaughlin, who began focusing on original material towards their self-titled debut EP, which came out in 2006. Produced by ex-Our Lady Peace guitarist Mike Turner, the EP opened some noticeable doors for the band, and they later recorded their full length debut CD "Hollywood Ending" in 2007. After their inception, Age of Daze opened for numerous high profile bands like Buckcherry, Hinder, and Collective Soul, won a 2009 Canadian Radio Music Award for Best New Rock Act, and scored a top #20 single on the Canadian rock radio charts with "Afflicted". After a break for much of 2011, Age of Daze changed their name slightly to Age of Days, and debuted their new lineup, with plans in place to record their second full length CD next month in Los Angeles with noted rock producer Brian Howes. Age of Days haven't played live since their return, but keep an eye out in case Jonny and the band play locally in the coming months!

Though I can't comment on Age of Days' current lineup or Jonny's work with them yet, their old material as Age of Daze implies a nice radio hard rock sound that's very accessible and good to rock along with! Tim Morrison has a good melodic singing voice with a heavier tinge, and the music on the whole suits his singing style very nicely! The guitar work suits the material on both softer and heavier sections, as does Brad McLaughlin's bass work, and their repetoire of original material from past albums would fit well on Rock 101's playlist! Nothing too risky, just some very solid hard rock with some good influences and lyrics, and I'm curious to hear what's coming next for their new album! I hope it stays true to the sound on "Hollywood Ending" though, and doesn't drift into post-grunge or Auto-Tune territory like too many current bands. What Age of Days have under their belts will find a big audience on it's own, but it'd be cool to see some more varied metal influences thrown in. Time will tell, but Age of Days are definitely a very promising Canadian hard rock outfit, and keep your eyes on them in 2012!

There's a good amount of Age of Days material from their 2005-2010 run as Age of Daze online to check out, and their album "Hollywood Ending" is available on iTunes, Amazon, and various other outlets for around $10, so definitely consider picking it up! Their debut EP is also floating around on torrent sites, but it's not readily available otherwise. For videos, there's plenty of live videos from Age of Daze concerts on YouTube (not many under the Age of Days name yet though), so search for them to see lots of clips from the past 6 years! Among them is the official music video for their first single off of "Hollywood Ending", entitled "Afflicted", which you can watch below!

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I hope you guys enjoyed this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile! Next month, we're going in a slightly different route for our next profiled band, as for the first time, we're looking at a tribute band with a Saultite in their ranks! That band is Ottawa quartet Mothership: The Ultimate Led Zeppelin Tribute, who feature former Sault resident and ex-That's Chester frontman Richard Fullerton as their "Robert Plant", so look out for our profile on them on or around February 26th! That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews and possibly more news tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Tym Morrison), New Videos, And More!!

2012-01-25T16:04:00.001-05:00

Let's get to some more news as we hit the middle of the week! Today, we've got some new videos from some Sault Michigan area performers, a local hard rock album postponement, and the likely identity of this month's CD review on the SMS, but first, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for this weekend!

Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison's current weekly concert arrangement at Bossy's Pub N' Grub will continue on Saturday afternoon with another acoustic show! This will be Tym's fourth straight Saturday show at the former Smack Daddy's, and you know he'll have plenty of hard rocking unplugged covers in store for fans and Bossy's regulars this weekend! Admission should be free, this should be an all ages event, and Tym will be on from 2:00 PM to about 6:00 PM on Saturday. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! After finally getting to see Tym's solo show after two+ years, I can safely say that he'll impress with his wide mix of acoustic covers from metal to even country, so if you're free on Saturday afternoon, consider a trip down to Bossy's this weekend! Stay tuned for more Tym (and Caveman) Morrison updates as they come in!

Next up, here's some updates on both our next CD review and an upcoming local metal album. You may remember that I tentatively slotted Sault Ontario solo artist Mike Haggith's new album "Neighbourhood Watch" for a review this month, seeing as it was slated to come out.... today. Well, the album has been postponed indefinitely, as revealed on a post on his Facebook page on Friday. The reason is due to illnesses that appear to have put a halt on the final recordings for the album, although Mike later confirmed that a new track named "Fading" will make the album as well upon it's release. As of right now, Mike says that "Neighbourhood Watch" will be completed "when it is", so there's no current timetable, and a release before the end of the month looks unlikely. This is disappointing, but hopefully Mike gets well soon so we can hear more new material, and click here for more on the album, including some preview demo tracks! That said, now that this album is on hold, what CD are we going to review this month? Barring a flash new release in the next week, we'll probably review defunct local hard rockers Foothill Road's second self-titled CD, as guitarist Mario Carlucci rocked the stage this month with Sneaky Pete, so that ties in well, so unless anything changes, look out for this month's CD review by Tuesday!

Let's wrap up this post with some new videos, starting with another new video from Kinross hard rockers Banned! Once again from Ashley Traynor's YouTube channel, this is also from Banned's show at The Bird on Saturday night, and it's the first Banned video we've seen featuring new singer Mike Straw on actual lead vocals! It's of their cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Tuesday's Gone", and how does Mike (and the band) do on it? Mike's stage presence is stiff, but he doesn't do a bad job singing this song, even if it's not that heavy, and hopefully we'll hear more lead vocal work from Mike in the future! Thanks again to Ashley for these nice quality Banned concert videos, and check out their rendition of "Tuesday's Gone" below!

And finally, here's a short 30 second video from Swayze Train guitarist Scott Savoie! It's just of Scott practicing some arpeggios on his guitar, which sound nice, but I wish the video was longer. Not too much to say, but Scott's definitely a talented guitarist, so check out his new video from Monday below, and if you're in the St. Ignace area, go see Swayze Train there this weekend at their Kewadin Casino!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our next Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile on Age of Days (featuring former Inside Spiral frontman Jonny Fabbro) tomorrow, along with more news and weekend concert previews over the next few days! Thanks everyone!

Another Local Metal Video Showcase!!

2012-01-23T16:46:00.001-05:00

It's time to get some more videos out to you guys on this wet Monday afternoon, so here's what's on tap for our latest local metal video showcase! Today, we have the latest videos from two notable Sault Michigan acts and two covers from a pair of Sault Ontario musicians, so here's all that you should know! (EDITED: 5:54 PM)

Brimley metal quartet Half A Man have posted some new videos onto YouTube, and the newest of them gives us our first glimpse at new singer Dillion Semasky! As posted onto guitarist Erik Rintamaki's YouTube channel yesterday, it's of most of Half A Man (I don't see bassist Gary Croad) covering the Down song "Bury Me In Smoke", and though it's filmed in the same location as their "Gooodbye" performance from last month, a white effects filter is laid on the video for some reason. Maybe it's to build anticipation for the new lineup's full debut? Who knows, but audio wise, Dillion sounds good! He knows the song, and he can pull off an aggressive yet melodic track like this with Half A Man, so all seems good to me so far! Check the above links to give the video a listen, or view it below, and thanks to Erik for telling me about the YouTube copy! That said, they have two more new videos on the band's YouTube channel as well, and like their other new YouTube uploads, these are from their April 16th concert at The Merchant's Bar. They're of their cover of Prong's "Snap Your Fingers, Snap Your Neck" and their original song "Life Goes On", so click each link to check them out! There's not much new to say on these in terms of quality, but these are solid and very heavy performances, especially "Life Goes On", so check out both of their new videos, and here's their new Down cover from yesterday!

Next up, here's some new videos from Kinross hard rockers Banned! No less than FOUR videos from their set on Saturday night at The Bird have been posted onto band members' Alex & Don Traynor's sister/daughter Ashley Traynor's YouTube channel over the last two days, which is awesome, so kudos to Ashley for filming these! The videos are of Banned covering Guns N' Roses' "Sweet Child O' Mine", Eric Clapton's "Wonderful Tonight", Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World", and (as embedded below) Alice In Chains' "Man In The Box", so click on each link to see her videos from Saturday night! For reference sake, Alex sings lead on each posted song except "Wonderful Tonight", which Don sang lead on. I find it odd that Banned's new singer/keyboardist Mike Straw doesn't seem to do much of either in the posted videos we've seen of Banned's current lineup, beyond backing vocals. Maybe it's just a coincidence or a slow build, but I'm curious to hear more of his talents! Overall though, these are fairly solid performances by Banned, though Alex definitely handles vocals better on songs that had higher-voiced singers originally. Good stuff all round, so check the above links for all the new (and old) Banned videos, and here's their cover of "Man In The Box"!

Finally, here's some new solo performance videos from a pair of Sault Ontario musicians, starting with the latest guitar cover from Neno Jovanovic! Like his other recent covers, this is of him playing the guitar tracks along with the rest of the original song, and in this case, it's a cover of Mastodon's "Blood & Thunder". It's a good cover, he knows the original well, but it'd be nice if it was the full song and if it was a bit louder in the mix. Still, it's worth checking out, so here's Neno's cover of "Blood & Thunder", as uploaded to his YouTube channel on Thursday!

And finally, ApocalyptiCDitroyeR frontman Jesse Middaugh has posted two new solo performance videos onto the band's YouTube channel! These are two weeks old, so I apologize for being late to mention these on here, they just slipped me by. These are the first videos that Jesse's posted on his YouTube in over four months that feature him on an electric guitar, which is good to see, and they're of his cover of Simple Plan's "Jet Lag" and (as embedded below) an original track named "The New One"! I'm not high on Simple Plan, but these new videos show off Jesse's guitar skills well, and the new track has promise as a hard rocking number, so definitely give these new videos a look above and below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile later this week! Thanks everyone!

Tym Morrison & Sneaky Pete Concert Reviews!!

2012-01-22T23:07:00.000-05:00

Well, it's time for two more concert reviews at The Sault Metal Scene, as I went to two different shows yesterday for the first time in some months! That's the entirety of this post, so read on below for my thoughts, but check out this month's YouTube Channel Profile on Borderline Divine (now Stillbroke's) old YouTube channel in the post below this one!

My day started oddly early for a 2:00 PM show at Bossy's Pub N' Grub on Pim Street, as Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison stopped in there for his third show in his current weekly concert arrangement! Before that though, I wanna apologize for a missed date of his, as Tym apparently rocked The Service Grill on Korah Road on the evening of January 14th. My sincere apologies for missing it, I don't know how it slipped me by for promoting on here. Yesterday though, Tym delivered an entertaining afternoon of covers for fans and Bossy's regulars, and I'm glad to have finally got out to have seen his solo show for the first time since 2009! Though Tym had a late start due to some vehicle trouble, he unloaded a nicely varied setlist of all kinds of classic songs, ranging from heavier fare like Metallica, Blue Oyster Cult, and Night Ranger to Beatles, Eric Clapton, and Billy Joel tracks, and even some Garth Brooks! His solo stuff is similar to a Caveman Morrison set, if unplugged and more wider reaching, so fans of the band would have been at home here. Ironically, like the last time I saw Tym live, he was battling a cold, and when we chatted between sets, he was visibly dealing with it, but during the songs, it was honestly not a factor.

Tym's guitar playing was good, and his singing voice was strong, but the cold did prevent him from singing some higher-sung covers. I'd also like to see his stage setup a bit more central in Bossy's, like where the Hollow reunion was staged, but I can understand why pool tables are out in that area for patrons. Overall though, Tym's solo show was a fun afternoon of entertaining music, and if you're ever in the Cambrian Mall or Canadian Nightclub area on a Sunday afternoon, stop in for a few hours to enjoy some great covers! Check out my photos from Tym's show at this location or at our Facebook page, and yes, I did get a video, so here's Tym covering Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters" yesterday afternoon!

Following that, I finally got a chance to see local hard rock quartet Sneaky Pete at The Rockstar Bar, many months after their debut last year! In terms of their live setup, they truly made the stage their own, filling it with lots of signature band items and numerous instruments, and their sound fit accordingly! Singer and drummer Mike Oakley can sure handle both roles well, and he rarely missed a beat throughout each set, and lead guitarist Mario Carlucci shone on his riffs and solos as well! Bill Brouillard's guitar work and backing vocals fit well also, and he had a very nice stage presence, while Sean Berlinguette handled the low end about as wella s I expected last night as well! Very talented guys overall, with few flubs or glaring errors for what they played. Their setlist covered all bases, ranging from Guns N' Roses, Ozzy Osbourne, and AC/DC songs to some surprising selections like The Neon Trees, Big & Rich, and Duran Duran, but it helped keep their setlits open and accessible to all audiences, and the people there were very receptive! I did notice that their first set was noticeably heavier than their following sets, which is sort of odd compared to what I'm used to, but it's all good!

I did find that maybe the bass could have boosted in the mix a bit, and Sneaky Pete's smoke machine didn't give my camera ideal shooting conditions (lots of bright grey photos), but that didn't detract from my enjoyment of their set! Sneaky Pete's hard rocking covers are definitely worth checking out, and hopefully I'll see them again on a local stage soon! Check out my photos from last night at this location, or visit the SMS on Facebook as linked above, and I again apologize for the quality. That said, I got a good quality video of their opening song last night, so here's their cover of Saliva's "Ladies & Gentlemen"!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news this week, along with this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile on Age of Days on Thursday! Thanks everyone!

YouTube Channel Profile Series: STILLBROKE1's Channel

2012-01-22T00:00:00.003-05:00

It's the 22nd of the month, so here's our latest YouTube Channel Profile! As usual in this monthly feature series, we're taking a look at a YouTube channel with at least a 50% concentration of videos with a local metal relevance, so we can profile it and tell you guys what lies within and what videos you should check out! After our three-for-all last month, we're kicking off 2012 in this series with a look at a prominent returning local band's old channel, so read on below for all that you need to know!
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STILLBROKE1's Channel (http://youtube.com/user/stillbroke1)

Owner: Borderline Divine frontman Jesse Frigault (and maybe his mother Laurie Usitalo too), but the channel is credited to the band as a whole, from when they were still known as Stillbroke.

Channel Timeline: Launched on May 2nd, 2009; Videos posted between July 2009 & May 2010.

Channel Summary: This is (or was) the official YouTube channel for Sault Ontario hard rock quartet Stillbroke, who changed their name to Borderline Divine late last year. The channel features 8 videos from late 2009 & early 2010, which included the release of their debut EP "Never Enough" and their final major activity under the Stillbroke name. Though I think some early 2009 concert footage may have been featured on this channel at one point, the currently posted videos include Stillbroke's set at the Kiss Battle of the Bands in December 2009, two advertisements for their EP, a short video of the crowd from a rare out of town show in Baysville, three solo performance videos by Jesse Frigault, and one featuring him and ex-guitarist Chris Villeneuve. Since Stillbroke descended into inactivity in late 2010, this channel hasn't been actively used or updated to reflect their return or name change, but keep an eye out just in case!

Why Should You Watch: Because it has a lot of good video footage and clips from the later active months of the band's run under the Stillbroke name, and their modern hard rock talent is evident in the posted clips! The advertisements are good for what they are, and Jesse's solo performance clips show his talent as a singer and guitarist as well. I can't see Borderline Divine using this channel in the future unless they can change the name of it, but if you miss the band from their 2008-2010 heyday, don't let the old Stillbroke channel pass you by!

Our Recommended Videos To Check Out:

Stillbroke Battle of the Bands for Kiss: The most popular video and the most substantial live concert footage here is of Stillbroke's set at the Kiss Battle of the Bands at The Canadian Nightclub on December 1st, 2009, where they played their self-titled song and "Never Enough" for hundreds of fans! This featured what I'd call their "classic lineup", including Jesse on vocals & lead guitar, current drummer Sam DeDominicis on rhythm guitar, prolific local musician Kyle McKey on bass, and Jenny Hooper on drums. Despite disappointment at the live sound quality and their stage setup in the video description, and that they didn't make the finals of the battle, Stillbroke still sound good here, and have a nice on stage energy & presence! It's how I remember them from back then, and the criticisms of the quality underrate the video, though the beginning of the first song is cut off. It's definitely worth checking out for old Stillbroke fans, or if you enjoyed the Kiss Battle of the Bands, which got the whole scene buzzing in 2009!

"Stillbroke: Never Enough" Advertisment: Two homemade commercials were posted onto the channel to promote the release of Stillbroke's 2009 EP "Never Enough", one of which featured the band's 2009 lineup riding atop their tour van set to the EP's title track. The one we're featuring here though is a later ad from March 2010, and it features Jesse demolishing an old piano with a sledgehammer, set to their song "Wash It Away" from the EP. Though only 1:41 long, it seems to symbolize their musical approach, tearing down an instrument they wouldn't use in favour of their existing hard rock sound. That, or it's fun destroying an old piano, but either way, it's a neat little ad! Note that the video ends with some purchasing details for "Never Enough", but I believe it's now out of print.

I Dont Wanna Say Goodbye - Jesse Frigault & Chris Villeneuve: Though three other solo performance videos by Jesse are on the Stillbroke channel (including the original compositions "I'm Still Hanging On" & "Drifting Away" and a cover of Disturbed's "Darkness"), I picked this May 2010 video of Jesse and former guitarist Chris Villeneuve playing the song "I Don't Wanna Say Goodbye" to post here as it has a fuller sound with two guitarists. Possibly the only public video footage of Chris from his brief tenure in Stillbroke, he and Jesse have good chemistry on this song, which nicely blends a ballad style with heavier vocals and a pretty good dual guitar solo. Though no videos have followed this one in over a year, it's still worth checking out for some proficient hard rock action from the last active months of their run under the Stillbroke name!

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I hope you guys enjoyed this month's YouTube Channel Profile! For the next installment of this series, I've randomly selected the YouTube channel of local electronic hard rock project Candle Hour to be profiled next, so look out for that between February 19th and 25th! That's all for now, but stay tuned later today for reviews of last night's Tym Morrison and Sneaky Pete concerts! Thanks everyone!

NEXT: CandleHour (and possibly more)

New Videos, A Band Re-Breakup, And A Band Looking To Play Here!!

2012-01-20T08:00:00.000-05:00

We've got a lot of news waiting to be posted on the SMS, so this is going up nice and early as an autopost so we can get another news post up tonight without downplaying anything. So let's start this busy news day with some new live concert videos, the latest video remembrances for the late David Gold, a band looking to play here, and leading things off, an apparent band breakup, so here's what you need to know!

It looks like Sault Ontario death metal quintet State of Misery have disbanded again. An official statement hasn't been made to that effect, but their Facebook page was recently deleted, which adds to other telling signs to their status, like the lack of official band updates since October, and band members' Steve Rhodes & Ray Cowan's recent work in View To A Kill & Social Suicide respectively. Plus, drummer Nick Kainula said in a photo comment on his personal Facebook page on Wednesday that "an actual reunion" may be in order for the future. This appears to end a brief & uneventful return for the rising young deathcore outfit, after coming back in August following a three month disbandment that started in May. I was hoping that their return would turn out to be a success on par with their fast rise in the local scene in early 2011, but who knows what happened internally late last year. Hopefully they do come back down the road, but I do wish Steve, Ray, Kevin, Devon, and Nick all the best in whatever comes next for them musically! They had loads of promise, so hopefully they find success in the local scene soon!

Next up, here's some new interview footage featuring late Woods of Ypres frontman David Gold! In August, you may remember when the Calgary webseries Extreme Metal Television featured live clips and an interview with David from Woods of Ypres' show there in May in the fourth episode of EMTV, which you can watch at this link. Well, in the wake of David's untimely passing last month, a tribute to David ends this latest episode of EMTV (as posted at this location on Wednesday), but the video's also worth checking out for pieces on Between The Buried And Me, Reverend Kill, and Kriticos. The David/Woods portion begins at around 12:17 in the video, where cohost King talks about his memories of David, including about his character, kind nature, and eagerness to see his music spread among fans. He also revealed plans for a tribute show to David in Calgary on February 24th, but details weren't elaborated on in the episode. Then, a video package rolls featuring some unaired live clips from that show and unreleased interview footage, where David talked about advice he'd give to up & coming bands, how times have changed for launching bands, and his own experiences promoting and getting the word out for Woods of Ypres.

The video closes with some amusing outtakes from when David did a plug for EMTV as well, so don't miss a second of the 8 minutes devoted to him and Woods of Ypres! It's a nice tribute featuring a great answer from David to the advice he'd give to up & coming bands, and it's clearly a well thought out response from someone who lived it and knew the realities of being in the music community, so definitely check out this new tribute video below, and stay tuned for more Woods of Ypres and David Gold stories as they roll in!

Thirdly today, another out of town metal band is looking to play a concert here in Sault Ontario! Yesterday, I recieved an e-mail from a member of the Calgary heavy rock n' roll trio The Shotgun Dolls, and apparently, they're looking to play in Sault Ste. Marie on their next tour run, although a timeframe for that tour wasn't given in the e-mail I recieved (if I hear anything further, I'll try and update this post.) Specifically, I was asked to recommend some venues they might be able to play at, and I've shot them back an e-mail, but as always, I'm opening up the floodgates for anyone out there who might be interested in hosting, booking, or helping The Shotgun Dolls in their local gig quest for this year! They're inspired by everyone from Led Zeppelin to Alexisonfire and have sort of a heavier classic rock inspired sound with some good catchy elements, and they'd be cool to have here in some fashion this year! If you like what you hear at the above link (featuring lots of audio and video clips), send The Shotgun Dolls a message at shotgundolls@gmail.com and if I hear more, I'll let you guys know!

Finally for today, here's some new YouTube video uploads from Brimley hard rock quartet Half A Man, who as you may remember, will return to the stage in time for this year's LemmaFest in June! Yesterday, the band uploaded two new videos onto their official YouTube channel from their April 16th concert at The Merchant's Bar, which was one of their last concerts before their lengthy break from the stage began. Featuring their early 2011 lineup, including guitarist Erik Rintamaki on lead vocals and ex-guitarist Denny Breslin, these videos are of Half A Man playing their original songs "Goodbye" (which is in memory of LemmaFest namesake Michael Lemma), and, as embedded below, "Freedom Ride"! These videos appear to be from the same camera as the previously uploaded videos of Half A Man playing "Don't Blame Me" and "Cripple" at this concert, so the same faults with the angle apply here, as it's centered on no band members, with Erik badly cut off on the left when singing. That aside, the quality's nice, and these are good performances! I think the addition of Dillion Semasky on vocals will open new doors for Half A Man, but I hope Erik's distinctively gruff singing still has a presence at future gigs. These are solid videos, so check them out at the above links, and here's "Freedom Ride"!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for another news post later tonight, along with concert reviews and our next YouTube Channel Profiles this weekend! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Half A Man), Sault Michigan Weekend Concert Previews, And The Latest From Rock 101!!

2012-01-19T22:33:00.003-05:00

As promised, here's our second weekend concert preview post for this weekend's metal & hard rock shows in Sault Michigan! While there's a few shows across the river for your metal needs, including a notable local band's debut, we also have news from Rock 101 and a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for this summer as well, so here's what you need to know! (And I apologize for not being able to make the Rosie metal night tonight, we have errands to run very early tomorrow morning. I'll be at TWO shows on Saturday though, so I hope to see you guys then!)

Brimley hard rockers Half A Man have announced their first concert after a long break from the stage, and it will take place at this year's LemmaFest! Yes, the Sault Michigan concert festival in honour of the late Michael Lemma will return to the stage outside of Dondee Lanes on June 23rd, as per this Facebook event page, but full details aren't out yet. For Half A Man, this is their first announced concert since May of last year, and barring any additional dates announced in the interim, this will be their first concert since adding new singer Dillion Semasky and parting ways with guitarist Denny Breslin, so things will look and sound noticeably different from their past live run. Notably, Half A Man were tentatively lined up for the first LemmaFest last year before they opted out due to other commitments, so it'll be good to see them taking part this year! Again, full details aren't out yet, but admission last year was $10, it was an all ages event, and it went from 12:00 PM through the night last year with bands like Swayze Train, Infathom, Scofflaw, and Powerslug among the performers, so that's an indication of what could be ahead. It'll be great to finally see Half A Man back on stage after over a year away, but stay tuned for more from them and LemmaFest over the coming months at the above links, and check out Half A Man's tribute song to Michael Lemma at this location!

Now to this weekend's concert previews for the metal & hard rock concerts that I know of in the Sault Michigan area, so here's what you need to know for your concertgoing needs across the river! First, a new local band makes their concert debut TOMORROW & SATURDAY NIGHT as local hard rock trio Trail's End will play their first concerts at The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino! As you may remember, this is the new band from Splitshot/Nixxon Dixxon alumni Chris Hubbard, Kyle Beaumont, and Jake LaLonde, who'll debut their new band three weeks after Splitshot's last concerts in St. Ignace took place. We know that the guys have clear talent from their past local work, but how will Trail's End's live show do? Time will tell, so definitely consider checking them out this weekend! Note that they aren't publically advertising these shows on their Facebook page, but Kewadin Casino's entertainment page still confirms these dates, so I assume they're on as scheduled. Both tonight & tomorrow's concerts should have no cover charge, 21+ age limits, and 10:00 PM-ish start times. Check the above links for more details! It's great to see Trail's End debut, and hopefully Chris, Kyle, and Jake reach new heights with this new project! Go see them at the casino if you can, and for a preview, here's their first original song "Run"!

Also this weekend on the heavier side of things is Kinross hard rock quartet Banned's next concert, taking place on SATURDAY NIGHT at The Bird, a.k.a. Golanka's Bar! One week after their set at Yooper's Got Talent in Rudyard, this rising local band will play their first "real" public concert in three weeks when they rock The Bird with a mix of covers and originals (more on that in a second) in their first public headlining show of the new year! Note that Banned are NOT playing tonight, this is a one night engagement for this weekend. Admission is likely free, everything starts at 10:00 PM tomorrow, and you must be 21 to attend. Check the above links for more details! Banned should deliver a solid set of hard rock covers for their fans this weekend, but for a preview, here's a brand new video of their current lineup! Filmed by guitarist Alex Traynor's sister Ashley (and drummer Don Traynor's daughter), this comes from the Yooper's Got Talent event in Rudyard this past weekend, and it was uploaded to Ashley's YouTube channel yesterday. This is the first footage I've seen of Banned with new members Jim Pentland & Mike Straw, and it's of an original song also called "Yooper's Got Talent", fittingly enough!

Featuring Alex on lead vocals and guitar, and Mike on backing vocals, this is the first original I've heard Banned do, and it has sort of a bluesy/southern rock vibe. It's not bad, though it could stand to be a bit heavier, but Alex uses his vocal range and solo guitar skills well! I like the audience participation element too, nice touch! Check out the video below, and also check out Ashley Traynor's YouTube channel linked above for Alex and Don's set at what looks like the same talent show last year with a Banned predecessor outfit!

And finally for today, here's a piece of news from The Sault's Rock Station, Rock 101. On Tuesday, it was announced that our local rock radio station has reached an extension on their deal with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds, that will see radio broadcasts of all our Ontario Hockey League team's regular season & playoff games continue on 101.3 FM for at least three more years, running through at least the 2014-15 season. Rock 101 originally picked up the Soo Greyhounds' broadcasting rights in 2009, when the Hounds left Sault Ontario country station Q104. The new deal doesn't mention anything about that Tuesday talk show that was hosted at Wacky Wings, but I'm not sure if it even still airs. I'm a Greyhounds fan, and I'm glad to see that they've formed a solid and successful partnership with Rock 101, but I know there's Rock 101 fans in the area who don't like the radio broadcasts cutting in to the rock music time, or would rather see a Sault Ontario team broadcasting on a Sault Ontario station. I bring it up here because we cover Rock 101 and this is on their schedule, but regardless, this is a great relationship for both parties, and hockey fans should be glad that they have an awesome partner in place to broadcast their games!

Besides, if you want rock radio on a weekday evening or a Sunday afternoon, or whenever games air, there's always WLSO and the Mackinac City-area stations to tune in to, so put them into consideration for your rock radio needs when the Hounds are on. For more on this topic, read Jeffery Ougler's Sault Star article on the new deal at this location, and go Hounds go!

That's all for tonight, but I have a logjam of news to get to tomorrow, so stay tuned for all of that, including some big stories and new videos! Thanks everyone!

Sault Ontario Weekend Concert Previews!!

2012-01-19T10:20:00.001-05:00

For the first time in 2012, we're breaking up our weekend concert previews due to the volume of local metal & hard rock concerts in the area over a given weekend! Nice to see things picking up again for the scene, so we're starting with an all Sault Ontario preview post today, and either tonight or early tomorrow, we'll post the Sault Michigan previews along with some extra stories. So let's kick off this post with the previews on the Ontario side for metal & hard rock concerts taking place between TONIGHT and Saturday! (EDITED, 5:21 PM)

First for this preview post is the 41st Roosevelt Hotel metal night, taking place TONIGHT! After a 6 week hiatus, the Thursday tradition at the Rosie is back, and it will be headlined by the return of As It Stands! Though they returned to the stage in Espanola last month, this will be the prominent local hardcore band's first appearance at a local concert in over five months, and you know they'll have lots of high impact originals from their forthcoming EP in store tonight! Opening the concert will be fellow local hardcore rockers Changing Waves, themselves returning to action for the first time since early September! Will the rust be melted away by their metal onslaught? Time will tell, but we've sure missed them! Opening tonight's festivities will be local melodic death metal quintet The Bear Hunters, who'll bring their brutal stylings to the stage for the first time in the new year, in their record 18th Rosie metal night appearance!

There's few heavier ways to lead off a concert, so be sure to be at The Rosie tomorrow night by 10:30 PM to avoid missing any of the bands! There's no cover charge, and you must be 19 to attend. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! There's lots of great local metal to be had, and I hope to see you guys there, with a review to hopefully follow tomorrow! Check the above links for more details, and for a preview, here's As It Stands playing their original "Conception" in 2010!

Also over the next few days is the return of Turner Up to the local concert stage! The reborn new version of the popular classic rock quintet will make their first appearance on a local stage in six weeks when they hit The Nicolet Tavern for the first time TOMORROW NIGHT & SATURDAY NIGHT! The new Turner Up doesn't gig nearly as frequently as the old version did, so if you've missed them, don't skimp out on their concerts this weekend! As usual for their concerts, they'll be on at around 10:00 PM both tomorrow & Saturday night, you must be 19 to attend, and there's no announced cover charge. For more details, visit the new Facebook event page! It's great to see Turner Up back on the local stage, and though 4/5ths of Turner Up have been seen in the interim with Havadder, it's always nice to see their heavier side emerge! Hopefully this weekend's shows are huge hits, and for a preview, here's the old Turner Up covering Guns N' Roses' "Mr. Brownstone" last year!

We'll close with two concerts taking place on Saturday only, starting with Tym Morrison's third acoustic solo concert at Bossy's Pub N' Grub! His latest weekly concert arrangement appears to have started well, as the Caveman Morrison frontman will be back to rock the former Smack Daddy's on Saturday afternoon with a wide array of hard rock and metal covers! If you've been missing Caveman Morrison, are overdue for an unplugged solo show like this, or you're in the mood for some great music in the Pim Street area, don't let this show pass you by! Admission should be free (aside from food/drink purchases), the show starts at 2:00 PM on Saturday, and I doubt there'll be an age limit, knowing the timeframe. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Sounds like a good time to me, and after way too long of a break from Tym's solo concerts, I'm fairly positive I'll be in attendance for this one! I hope to see you guys there for some great acoustic metal covers, and for a preview, here's Tym and a special guest covering Extreme's "More Than Words" at The Big Cheese from a few years ago!

And finally, Saturday night brings us the return of Sneaky Pete to the local concert stage! This talented hard rock quartet will make their first local concert appearance in almost three months on Saturday night at The Rockstar Bar, which they haven't played in almost five months either, so it's been a while in both ways for their return! Though this is a one night only appearance (they're not playing tomorrow night), they should have sets full of hard rock classics to entertain their fans with and, as the Facebook event page says, rock away your winter blues! This concert will be a 19+ event, there will likely be a cover charge of around $5, and a 10:30 PM start time is listed. For more details, check the above links! This sounds like a great concert, and it's nice to finally see Sneaky Pete back rocking the local scene after a few months away from public performances! If all goes well, I hope to finally be there to check them out on Saturday night, so hopefully I'll see you guys there! For a preview, here's Sneaky Pete's mashup of a couple of metal classics from Ozzy Osbourne and Judas Priest!

That's all for now, but stay tuned in our next post for Sault Michigan weekend concert previews and some more news! Thanks everyone!

Last Month's Poll Results And Our Poll On Your Favourite Local Metal CDs of 2011!!

2012-01-18T15:21:00.001-05:00

It's poll day at The Sault Metal Scene! Today, we have our first "Favourite ___ of 2011" poll to launch, but before all that, our last poll of 2011 has now closed, and thanks to all 73 of you who voted! That total actually outperformed my estimate for it, so thanks again! In case you forgot, last month's poll question was this: Which ACTIVE out of town band with a Saultite in their lineup do you most want to see next at a local concert? Without any further adieu, here's the final results!

Infathom (41 votes)
Other (9 votes)
Maximum RNR (6 votes)
Gravity Crash (4 votes)
Phatstick (4 votes)
The Lust Boys (3 votes)
Fifth Way (2 votes)
Mark Rand [with The Mark Rand Band] (2 votes)
The Heatseeking Moisture Missiles (1 vote)
Summon (1 vote)
Age of Days (0 votes)
Beyond Haven (0 votes)
NeanderTHRALL (0 votes)
RedStone Riot (0 votes)
Repetitions (0 votes)
Violet Fuse (0 votes)

What do you guys think? Well, in ascending order, I'm glad to see that only 6 bands got no votes (I assumed more bands would in the poll.) I'm most surprised that RedStone Riot and two of Ash Richtig's bands got no support from voters, but in time, hopefully all of these bands have greater local recongition beyond their membership! Of the bands with 1-2 votes, they got support like I assumed, but maybe less than I thought going in, especially for Mark Rand's solo project. The Lust Boys finished 6th with 3 votes, and luckily, they are indeed coming to town in March, which is a great sign! Phatstick's 5th place finish with 4 votes is a good sign for their local popularity, though I wish they played their originals live again. I was most surprised to see Gravity Crash finish in 4th place despite never playing locally before, but they are talented, and maybe Paul will bring them home at some point for a show! Third (and highest for Canadian choices) was Maximum RNR, and after their well recieved concert here in February, it's hopefully only a matter of time before Brent & Curtis bring them back to the area! Second with 9 votes was "Other", which could mean a lot of things, from longing for certain band's reunions or wanting a band with no Saultites to play locally, but I can't say for certain what people had in mind here.

But the overwhelming winners with 41 votes were Munising metal band Infathom, who did attain some local prominence last year at LemmaFest, among many other Upper Peninsula gigs! I know that the band jumped on this poll and promoted it on band pages, which likely helped their high vote totals, but their sound is exciting and they have lots of promise, so it's a clear sign that fans do want them to play a local concert again down the road! Check them out at the above links, stay tuned for news on frontman Dillion Semasky's new local band Half A Man, and thanks to everyone for voting!

As for this month's poll, we're back into the swing of things for your top picks of the past year, so I'm posing this question to you guys: What was your favourite new local metal album of 2011? Last year saw a decent amount of new CD releases from some prominent local acts, so I'm curious to see what your respective favourites were! Note that I'm only counting albums that were first released between January 1st and December 31st, 2011, so the re-releases of Woods of Ypres' "Woods IV: The Green Album" or Theatre of Night's "Christmas Night" aren't official choices in the poll. As well, no albums that haven't been officially released for purchase are being counted, so the leak of "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light" or Sykotyk Rampage's "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts of Intellect" aren't on the poll, as neither was officially released as of New Year's Eve. Just brand new CDs that you could actually buy last year are counted, but you can be creative with your picks if one of the above was your favourite in the "Other" section! This poll will run until February 18th, and like last month, you can pick multiple choices, but you can only physically vote once. So, what are your choices for this poll of favourite local metal CDs in the past year? Read on to find out!

Clownsack - Funny Farm: The only Sault Michigan metal CD to see an in-store release in 2011 that I know of, Clownsack's second CD and first EP gained some good notoriety upon it's release this past spring. I personally missed the funk elements compared to "Rotten Candy", but I enjoyed it! However, did you think "Funny Farm" was your favourite new local CD of 2011?

Destroilet - EP: Despite a very quiet release in May with no attached in-store sales or CD release show, Sault Ontario hardcore quintet Destroilet delivered a nice EP of old school hardcore for their debut disc, including some well received covers of other local bands! However, does this top all other new CD releases from area metal bands last year?

Garden of Bedlam - Everything Will Die: After months of anticipation, Garden of Bedlam successfully launched their first full length album and second disc at a Boxing Day CD release show last month at The Canadian Nightclub, and it's since gotten some great responses! It may have been the most eagerly awaited of last year's released CDs, but was "Everything Will Die" your favourite of them all?

Either of Mike Haggith's new albums: Ever the prolific artist, Sault Ontario solo musician Mike Haggith put out two new solo albums in 2011 through Rotten Records, including his latest studio album "Suspended Animation" and his most recent compilation CD "The Best Of Mike Haggith, Volume II", featuring top songs from his 2009-2011 solo albums. Both are choices in the poll, so if you liked either one the most last year, vote for it!

Any of Sykotyk Rampage's new albums: In one of their most creatively prolific years to date, the original crash band themselves put out no less than FOUR new digital albums in 2011 for online purchase, including "Karrs", "Bucket of Ham", "Space", and "Zombiez", each with their own creative flourishes and running themes! With more to come in 2012, are any of these new Sykotyk Rampage albums your top picks of last year?

Woods of Ypres - Home: The last brand new Woods of Ypres release during David Gold's lifetime, this vinyl single unveiled two songs from the band's "Woods 4.5" sessions in August 2010 through an independent release in the spring on Practical Art Records. Despite it's length, was "Home" your favourite new local metal album of any kind from 2011?

Other: Do you have another CD or album in mind as your favourite? Are you more for the rereleases of "Woods IV: The Green Album" or Theatre of Night's "Christmas Night"? How about a non-metal CD release, or one that was merely leaked prior to it's scheduled release in 2012? If any of the above apply, vote here!

VOTE TODAY!! You have until February 18th to make your voices heard, at which point we'll likely launch our "Biggest News Story of 2011" poll! Stay tuned for that next month, but vote in this poll while you have the chance, and stay tuned for Sault Ontario weekend concert previews in our next post!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Banned & The Lust Boys) And New Videos!!

2012-01-17T14:38:00.001-05:00

Let's keep the news rolling on this snowy Tuesday, as we've got a lot to get to today, including this week's classic video, a new solo cover from a local guitarist, and kicking things off, two LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, including one show THIS WEEKEND, so here's what you need to know! (Edited at 4:50 PM)

Kinross hard rock quartet Banned are hitting the stage THIS SATURDAY at Golanka's Bar, a.k.a. The Bird! This will be their first Sault Michigan concert in about three weeks, though I'll note that Banned took part in a minimally-advertised talent show of some type named "Yooper's Got Talent" last weekend in Rudyard. For the life of me, I couldn't find anything on this event, save for older videos featuring mostly comedians, so I couldn't reliably cover it on here. Hopefully Banned did well, and I apologize for missing this event! This weekend though, Banned should deliver a great set of hard rocking covers for their fans at The Bird, so consider checking them out on Saturday night! My source for this show is a posting on Banned's Facebook page. I'd assume that this concert is a 21+ event, there's no announced cover charge, and everything starts at 10:00 PM. Check the above links for more details! Banned are definitely a talented rising local band, so don't miss their exciting sound on Saturday at The Bird! Stay tuned for more on this show later in the week when we preview this weekend's local metal/hard rock concerts!

Also for new concerts is a big metal show on March 30th, and it features the local debut of The Lust Boys! As you may know, this is the Victoria, British Columbia sleaze/glam rock quintet featuring Sault Ontario native Ben "Benny Blitz" Kemp-Reynolds on guitar, and it looks like their quest for a local booking here on March 30th paid off, as they're listed for a headlining gig at The Canadian Nightclub that night during their "Tour Before Dishonour" this spring! My source is the tour poster on your left, and the gig (with venue) is also listed on their Reverbnation page, but this is subject to change. Opening for them at this show will be local classic metal quartet Late & Loud, featuring Ben's old Glass Statues bandmates Benn Garside and Josh Hatherly, which makes them an especially fitting opening band for this show! I'd assume this concert would have a 19+ age limit, and Reverbnation lists a likely incorrect start time of 8:00 PM, but other details like admission prices, possible extra bands, and other ground rules are not out yet. Until we hear more, check the above links for more details! It's great to see The Lust Boys bring their sleaze onslaught to the Soo finally, and it'll be good to see Ben back on a local stage after three years away! There'll be lots of great classic metal sounds at this show, so keep it in mind for this spring, and stay tuned for updates and possible changes as they roll in!

We'll close today's post with some new videos, and first, here's the latest solo cover from local guitarist Neno Jovanovic! This time, he covered the guitar track from Rob Zombie's "Sick Bubblegum" and posted the results (as synced with the original song) onto his YouTube channel yesterday! It's a good cover, and he knows the guitar track well, but it sounds a bit reserved compared to the original song. Very good though, Neno's got real talent, so check out more of his solo covers at the above links, and here's his take on "Sick Bubblegum"!

And finally, here's this week's classic video! With the big metal show at The Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday (possibly the 41st metal night?), I wanted to tie in our latest classic video with a band playing that concert, and I've chosen The Bear Hunters! We're slowly gonna include 2011 videos more regularly in this series as the year progresses, and in that spirit, this week's video comes from the Rosie metal night on February 3rd. In this video, The Bear Hunters (including then-guitarist Mike Vincent) covered "Squirrel Buddy" by guitarist Mitch Sirie's April Eyes solo project, which became a fan favourite during it's brief time in their setlists early last year! I actually filmed this performance too on an earlier upload on our YouTube channel, but this particular video was filmed at a different angle by attendee Tiia Opala-Ollinaho. Good audio quality, though the original video was largely focused on Mitch and singer Nik Deubel, and it was very dark on her camera too. It's a good video though, and it's always nice to see extra perspectives! Tiia posted this on Facebook the day after the concert, and you can view the original video at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=10150127795912527, but note that I fixed and brightened the lighting on the video after posting it on YouTube.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to The Bear Hunters and Tiia for all of their hard work, I'm just trying to spread this video out to a wider audience! It's a solid video, and kudos to Tiia for uploading it, so check out The Bear Hunters covering "Squirrel Buddy" last February below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our next "Favourite ____ of 2011" poll tomorrow, and the final results of this month's poll, so if you haven't voted yet, VOTE A.S.A.P. at the form on the top left! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Turner Up & Tym Morrison) And Some New Video Uploads!!

2012-01-16T18:04:00.000-05:00

It's time for some more news and notes on this Monday evening, but be sure to check out this morning's post below this one for news on a new concert and my Merves/Frightlight concert review! Here though, we've got news on a video I've moved to another site, uploads of the remainder of an unreleased local EP, and leading things off, some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS for this weekend, so here's what you need to know!

Six weeks after their first show at Feedback, the reborn Turner Up will apparently be rocking The Nicolet Tavern THIS FRIDAY & SATURDAY! An official online announcement from band sources hasn't been made yet, but Turner Up are advertised for this weekend on The Nic's marquee board, and guitarist Robert Brown alluded to playing with Turner Up this weekend on the event page for Sneaky Pete's concert on Saturday, so things are looking confirmed for them. This will be Turner Up's first show of 2012 and their first concert at The Nicolet Tavern since the new band formed last fall, though, most of the members' other band Havadder have been seen often in the interim, so click here for more on their next shows! I imagine these new concerts will have no cover charge, 19+ age limits, and 10:30 PM-ish start times. Stay tuned for updates and links pertaining to these new shows as they come in! Sounds good to me, and hopefully Turner Up kick off 2012 with a bang just like at their rebirth last year, so keep an eye out for more on these shows as they come in!

Also in new concerts this weekend is another solo acoustic concert from Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison! Continuing his successful weekly arrangement at Bossy's Pub N' Grub, Tym will be back at the Pim Street restaurant & bar on Saturday afternoon for his third straight acoustic show there, and you know from experience and past gigs that he'll have hours of hard rock and metal covers in store for fans and revelers this time around! As usual, there'll likely be no cover charge on Saturday, I doubt there'll be an age limit, and he'll be on at 2:00 PM. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! If you've missed Tym's recent solo gigs or Caveman Morrison concerts, definitely consider making out to his next one, especially as it'll be over before any of the night concerts! I believe this will finally be the day I see Tym's solo show again after way too long without, so hopefully I'll see you guys there, and stay tuned for more on this and all other concerts this weekend in our concert previews later in the week!

Next up today, do you remember when we capped off our Christmas season with surprise uploads of songs from Sense of Truth's unreleased debut EP? Well, I have copies of the rest of the prominent local hard rock quintet's studio material from this unreleased album, and I've posted them onto our YouTube channel! Singer Cory Murchison dropped off a burned copy of the album to me yesterday afternoon, and now I can tell you guys a bit more about what would have been in our hands had the EP came out before Sense of Truth disbanded last fall. The self-titled EP would actually have featured seven songs, not five as was rumoured, though only six would have been listed, including the previously posted "Crawling", "Vicious Cycle", and "Push & Pull", and three songs that haven't been available to publically stream in full until today, those being "Pieces of the Mirror", "Done It Again", and "Land Of Greed". As well, there would have been a seventh hidden track at the end of the EP, which was an instrumental hard rock number that I don't recall Sense of Truth playing live. Click the above links to hear each full song from the unreleased EP, and note that I deleted the old YouTube upload of the "Land of Greed" sample, now that we have the full copy. Thanks again to Cory for sending these my way!

It's great to have the full EP available now, and it jumpstarted some good memories, like "Done It Again", which I completely forgot about in the last year! The songs sound good overall, and the production by Miguel Gauthier at Stereo Soul Studios does these tracks justice, but it's still disappointing that this never got a formal release. Could this EP get a review at some point on here? Possibly, especially if I can tie it in with members' next public concerts, but time will tell! For now, check the above links to hear Sense of Truth's entire unreleased debut album, and here's "Pieces of the Mirror"!

And finally, here's a note on the whereabouts of one of our posted videos, and the possible destination others could take in the future. Recently, our classic video upload of Sault Michigan quartet Monkey's Uncle's cover of Jet's "Cold Hard Bitch" was muted due to copyright concerns. I don't believe copyright should be enforced on covers, but I'm not gonna test YouTube or skirt authority by trying to re-upload it, so I deleted it from YouTube and re-posted it on our MySpace page. I know this came from MySpace already, but I'm thinking about turning our MySpace page into a place for videos that either tripped copyright laws or could violate them there as an alternate spot. Besides, it's a good performance, so why punish you guys because it's a cover? Check out our "new" upload of this Monkey's Uncle video below, and when/if a new SMS-relevant video is posted on MySpace instead, I'll surely let you guys know!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for our next poll and last month's poll results on Wednesday, plus more news and notes as the week rolls on! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Sneaky Pete) And The Merves/Frightlight Concert Review!!

2012-01-16T01:35:00.000-05:00

I apologize for this being late, we got caught up in some stuff yesterday. This post is mostly focused on our latest concert review (our first of 2012 too), but leading things off, we do have a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, so here's all that you need to know on this Monday morning!

Local hard rock quartet Sneaky Pete will return to the stage THIS SATURDAY at The Rockstar Bar! In what looks like a one-night-only appearance, this talented veteran quartet will play their first show of the new year, their first public concert in almost three months, and first Rockstar Bar date in almost five months on Saturday, for what should be a hard hitting night of covers and good times! It's always good to see them back on stage, it's been too long, so don't forget about this latest Sneaky Pete concert! The show will start at 10:30 PM on Saturday night, you must be 19 to attend, and I'd expect there to be a cover of around $5, so don't come with empty pockets. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! This sounds like a solid concert, and if things fall in to place, hopefully I can finally make it out to see Sneaky Pete this weekend! Stay tuned for more updates as they come in, and keep an eye out for another possible first show of the year from another classic-leaning hard rock band this weekend as well!

Now to the concert review, as I was in attendance for the Merves/Frightlight concert on Saturday night, and my first concert in way too long! A good (and growing) crowd was on hand for the opening band, that being Frightlight, who had a whole set of Misfits covers in store for fans in their Canadian Nightclub debut! Not an original in sight, but how'd they sound? Pretty good! Along with familiar covers like "Helena", "We Are 138", and "Dig Up Her Bones", Frightlight threw in lots of newer or previously unheard Misfits covers like 'Die, Die My Darling", "She", and "Hybrid Moments", and they did them justice for the most part! Johnny Pints' vocals started to get strained as the set went on, but I can't complain too much. Guest guitarist Tiffany Stocco handled everything well and fit in with the rest of the band, and Rick Styles seamlessly took over the drums in Chris FreakNStein's absence himself, so there was no worries on the lineup front! My big problem was that they went too short, and it'd have been cool to have heard covers of songs like "Last Caress" or "Where Eagles Dare", but Frightlight's one-night Misfits-only set was definitely fun, and hopefully they're back on stage sooner than later!

Headlining this Saturday night punkfest was Toronto's own The Merves, featuring prominent local musician (and Lion Ride frontman) Mikey Hawdon on vocals & guitar. It's been almost seven months since we've seen Mikey front a band locally, so it was good to see him back in town! Notably, The Merves operated as a trio last night, as guitarist Keith Carman was absent for unannounced reasons, but did that impact their set at all? Not a lot, but certain songs did sound emptier without the second guitar. Now, I'm admittedly not a scholar of The Ramones, but I like many of their songs and appreciate their musical impact, and I think that The Merves did a solid job last night covering their classics! Mikey's singing voice still screams Lion Ride more than Joey Ramone when you hear The Merves, but they handled Ramones classics like "53rd & 3rd", "Psycho Therapy", and "Suzy Is A Headbanger" very nicely! Phil Page's bass work was solid throughout their set, and Andrew McMullen (who replaced the Sault's Mark Rand in The Merves last year) was great on drums himself! That said, it'd have been nice to include a second guitar, but the big crowd and loud reception spoke for itself! Very nice set of Ramones classics, and hopefully Mikey's back with one of his projects soon!

Overall, if you love old school punk, you'd have been right at home at this concert! Both The Merves and Frightlight did justice to the classics, and though things only really got heavy during Frightliht's set, you can't argue with a great night of punk rock! I got a bunch of photos on Saturday, so click here to check them out or visit our official Facebook page! I apologize for forgetting to get a "Tag Yourself!" photo, it never crossed my mind, and I especially regret it knowing the crowd that was at The Canadian on the weekend! I did get a video though, so here's Frightlight's cover of The Misfits' "Helena"!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news over the week and our first "Favourite ___ of 2011" poll on Tuesday, plus last month's poll results! Thanks everyone!

New Videos, David Gold Updates, And A New Rock 101 Contest!!

2012-01-14T12:52:00.002-05:00

Here's one more news post for this Saturday afternoon! I may not be able to make the Tym Morrison show today due to some prior commitments, but I'll try real hard to make it next Saturday if another Bossy's show is confirmed! No matter what though, I'll be at The Canadian tonight for The Merves and Frightlight! On today's post, we've got some new solo guitar performance videos from two local musicians, the latest David Gold updates, and leading things off, here's news on a cool new radio contest that could pay off for one lucky person!

Hey Rock 101 listeners, do you wanna win some extra cash? Can you sing? If not, can you at least complete song lyrics? The Sault's Rock Station, in conjunction with the Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds (whose games are broadcast on Rock 101) are joining forces for the "Be A Rock 101/Soo Greyhounds Rock Star" contest where lucky fans can earn the chance to complete lyrics to one of five songs at an upcoming Soo Greyhounds game, with $101 in store for the winner! According to Greyhounds announcer Gerry Liscumb Jr.'s post on Local2 (which you can read at this location), entries for the contest begin this Monday on Rock 101 during "Scott & Brian In The Morning", which airs weekdays from 6:00 AM to 10:00 AM. To enter, you'll need to call Rock 101's toll free contest line at 1-855-876-2536 (or 1-855-8-ROCK-FM) when prompted, though I don't know specific times or rules for calling in beyond what's on Local2, so be sure to listen in for complete details! Three winners will be selected from those who successfully call in over the coming week, and they'll be announced on Friday. The following week, the five songs that could be chosen for the actual contest will be revealed each day, leading up to the actual contest on Sunday, January 29th at the Greyhounds' game that night against the Plymouth Whalers.

Presumably during the intermission, the three contestants will attempt to complete the lyrics to one of the five chosen songs, and fans in attendance will choose the winner, who will win $101 in free money. Check the above links for more details! This sounds like an interesting contest, and it's good to see Rock 101 and the Greyhounds connecting a bit beyond just game broadcasts and that Wacky Wings talk show. If you're interested in entering, bone up on your rock lyric knowledge and singing voices, and tune in to Scott & Brian over the next week to try and qualify for this contest!

Next up, here's the latest David Gold/Woods of Ypres updates! I apologize for being late on this, but David Gold's brother Michael announced on the David Gold's Legacy Facebook page on New Year's Eve that he was looking for input on locations that should be stopped at or featured in the tour that's planned to gather footage and material for the documentary on David's life. From what I can tell, Michael's planning to do the tour using David's tour bus, and he has been working on the schedule over recent weeks. I have no clue if he's done, but give him a shout at this location if you have any suggestions! The only other real news I have today relates to the various tribute articles to David, and there's plenty online, way too many to accurately cover without getting repetitive or downplaying certain ones. The official Earache/Jo el Violette-ran David tribute page has a bunch of them, but I will especially note that a recent podcast by Mainstream Resistance Radio is now online featuring a ton of great remembrances of David by the hosts, along with guest interviews (including one with ex-Woods of Ypres drummer Evan Madden) and 18 songs spanning Woods of Ypres' career being played. It's a very long, but great listen, so click here to stream it and read more! Stay tuned for more Woods/David news as I hear it!

We'll close this post with some new videos, starting with the latest solo performance video from Sault Michigan guitarist Chris Hubbard! You probably know him best from his work in Nixxon Dixxon and Splitshot, but he'll debut with his new band Trail's End next week. Aside from that (which we'll have more on soon), he's also kept busy with this new video of his cover of Eddie Van Halen's guitar solos from the new Van Halen single "Tattoo"! Just days after the song was released, Chris had already learned the guitar solos (remember, he's a huge Van Halen fan), and he definitely has a good grasp on the parts he learned! The response to this video has been great so far, but see what you guys think below, so here's Chris Hubbard's cover of the "Tattoo" solos, as posted on Thursday onto his YouTube channel!

And finally, here's some interesting notes on a YouTube channel from a user named SundayFoggyNotions. I believe this person was a former Foggy Notions employee before it became Feedback, and his original post on YouTube was a live video from a 2010 Tym Morrison acoustic show there. Since June though, he's posted some more YouTube videos featuring what appear to be his own solo guitar work. Only one lasts more than 48 seconds, but he does have skill! One is a 7 string guitar solo, and the others are covers of the guitar solos from the White Lion songs "When The Children Cry" and (as posted a few days ago) "Wait", and they do sound good! I don't know who SundayFoggyNotions is definitively, but he is a good guitarist, and he does White Lion justice on these recordings! Check out his "Wait" solo cover below, and more at the above links!

That's all for today, but I'll hopefully see you guys out and about for some concerts, including 100% definitely at The Canadian tonight! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Nudge), Weekend Concert Previews, And New EP Updates!!

2012-01-13T00:00:00.003-05:00

Let's keep the news coming for this Friday morning, including for this weekend's local metal & hard rock concert previews! I only know of two metal shows this weekend, both in Sault Ontario within seconds of each other, but we'll get to them in a bit. We also have details on a couple bands' EP recordings, a quick note on the status of a Sault Michigan band, and leading things off, two more LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, so here's what you need to know! (EDITED: 8:28 PM)

Marquette hard rock quartet Nudge will make their first stops in Sault Michigan of the new year on February 3rd and 4th at The Satisfied Frog! These concerts are replacing scheduled shows by local hard rockers NoXcape that were booked there last year, and I'll have more on what I know of their status in a second. These will be Nudge's first local concerts in almost three months and their first stops in Sault Michigan with new drummer Tim Rousseau, who replaced Eric Schlumpf in the band last month. If you're in the market for Nudge's brand of modern hard rock covers, you'll wanna be at The Frog in three weeks! These shows have no announced cover charges, 21+ age limits, and likely 10:00 PM start times. For more details, visit Nudge's Reverbnation page, and thanks to frontman Danzo McCracken for alerting me to the new concerts! It's great seeing Nudge back in town for some concerts, and hopefully they're big hits as usual, thanks to their exciting and hard hitting modern rock covers! Stay tuned for more on Nudge and any future local dates they may have as they come in!

As for NoXcape's status, I'm starting to really question if they're even an active band anymore. They last made a real band update in September, they never promoted their announced New Year's Weekend concerts at The Frog (which I doubt took place now), and we know about their shows next month being off already. I'll assume they're active until proven otherwise, but I have my eyes peeled in case anything about a possible breakup is said publically, which I haven't seen yet. Stay tuned!

Now to this weekend's concert previews, and first is Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison's second Saturday afternoon show in his current weekly arrangement at Bossy's Pub N' Grub! After a successful launch to his new weekly solo series last week, Tym will be back at the Pim Street bar/restaurant TOMORROW AFTERNOON with a set full of acoustic hard rock covers for his fans, so if you've missed his Service Grill gigs (or Caveman Morrison), definitely take note of tomorrow's entertainment! There's no cover charge, I don't believe there's an age limit given the time of the show, and unlike his Bossy's debut last weekend, tomorrow's concert will reportedly start at 2:00 PM, not 1:00 PM like last week. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! This should be a fun set of acoustic metal covers, and with Bossy's being close to my place, I believe I'll swing by tomorrow afternoon to give Tym's solo show a long overdue review at the SMS! I haven't seen him live solo since 2009, it's been waaaaaay too long, so this is as good a day as any! Hope to see some of you guys there, and for a preview, here's Tym covering Eric Clapton's "Tears In Heaven" at what's now Feedback in 2010!

Also tomorrow on Pim Street is some hard charging punk & metal action just seconds down the road at The Canadian Nightclub, and opening this concert is local horror punk quintet Frightlight! This will be their first concert of 2012, and their first show in almost three months, but there's some extra differences tomorrow as well. Reportedly, their set tomorrow will be entirely comprised of Misfits covers, with no originals, which should be interesting, and you know from their past gigs that they do Danzig and Graves-era Misfits songs really well, so there's nothing to fear! Also, Frightlight's lineup will look different tomorrow as well, as new drummer Chris FreakNStein will not be with the band for this concert. A public reason for his absence hasn't been made, but hopefully nothing bad happened! That said, his spot behind the drumkit will be filled by guitarist (and Caveman Morrison/Redundant drummer) Rick Styles, which should work out well! On guitar in Rick's place tomorrow will be frontman Johnny Pints' T. Rex Manning bandmate Tiffany Stocco, who should do well tomorrow, but check out some of her solo guitar covers at this location! My source the above information is Rick's personal Facebook page. That all said, Frightlight are opening for a notable band with a prominent local musician in their Soo debut, that being Toronto-based Ramones tribute band The Merves, who are fronted by Mikey Hawdon of Lion Ride fame!

Rocking alongside Maximum RNR, Teenage X, and The Doubts alumni, picture Mikey fronting The Ramones and you'll get a good idea of The Merves' entertaining sound, so if you like Lion Ride or The Ramones, you'll definitely wanna stick around for their headlining set! Admission is $5 at the door, you must be 19 to attend, and doors open at 10:00 PM tomorrow night. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! Sure, this is more of a punk leaning show given Frightlight's setlist tomorrow, but The Misfits can be very heavy, and there's plenty of talent to go around! It's great to see Mikey back home for a concert, and you know that The Merves will deliver a high energy set of Ramones classics, and Frightlight will be sure to set the tone well in their return! Plus, this concert is just seconds from Bossy's, so if you live in the area, you'll have no trouble getting to both concerts, like I plan to do tomorrow! I'll see you guys tomorrow night at The Canadian, and for a preview, here's Frightlight covering two Misfits songs at The Rosie in June!

Finally today, here's some updates on a couple local bands' EP plans. First, remember how Sault Ontario death metal quintet The Bear Hunters began recordings towards their debut EP named "Bloodthirst" in May? Well, they finally mentioned said plans again on their Facebook page on Tuesday, announcing plans to actually begin recording demos. Why did things stall last year after announcing "Bloodthirst" eight months ago? I don't know, but according to guitarist Mitch Sirie's personal Facebook page, the band wants to set up an online store of some type to sell the demo when it comes to that point, with hopes to use it to get a grant to record professionally in the future. As more updates come out on their EP/demo, I'll let you guys know! The other update that I have is that new Sault Michigan metal quintet Hoist The Sails have already begun work on their own debut EP, and have kept fans updated on it via their Facebook page. An honestly very promising 63 second clip of an original song was posted at this location that indicates a death metal sound, and from what I can hear, they sound proficient and brutal! I can't embed it here (it's a Facebook video), but check it out! Apparently, at least one song is finished and needs to be mixed, but it will be posted online when that process is done. Sounds good to me, so stay tuned for updates on Hoist The Sails' planned EP, and much more at the above links!

That's likely all for today, but I'll see you guys TOMORROW at Bossy's & The Canadian, and if there's enough news for a new news post before our next concert reviews, I'll make sure to get it up! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Powerslug), A "New" Local Band, And A New Woods of Ypres Video!

2012-01-12T15:06:00.001-05:00

It's time for another news post at The Sault Metal Scene, but first, just a reminder that our next post will feature weekend concert previews, including for Tym Morrison's second show in his new Bossy's arrangement and the Frightlight/Merves concert at The Canadian, so watch out for that tomorrow! Right now though, we have some new videos of a local metal relevance, a newly discovered local band, and leading things off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT, so here's what you need to know!

Sault Michigan hard rockers Powerslug will return to The Rapids Lounge at Kewadin Casino on March 2nd & 3rd! The band formerly known as River Witch weren't among last additions to the concert schedule on Kewadin Casino's entertainment page, but it's nice to see them confirmed in these latest additions! With the lack of a band page now, there's no official confirmation yet from Powerslug members, but Kewadin's entertainment page has always been reliable in the past, so don't worry! Barring new dates next month (there is an opening on Kewadin's schedule), this will be Powerslug's first concert weekend at The Rapids Lounge in three months, so if you've missed them recently, circle those dates on your calendar! I expect they'll have start times of around 10:00 PM with no cover charge and 21+ age limits. Check the above links for more details! It's good to see Powerslug back on stage for some hard rocking good times, and hopefully we'll hear more at some point from some source about their next concerts or how they sound! Stay tuned for updates!

Two more quick notes relating to the latest Kewadin schedule updates: Firstly, if you're wondering about the band named Bittermoon that are playing there over the next two months, they're a top 40/country/rock quintet that formed last year. Though they're a talented band, they don't fit in our genre range. Give them a listen though! The other note is that Kewadin's schedule mysteriously removed the announced dates from April onward, which included Monkey's Uncle & Swayze Train shows. This has happened before, and the last time I remember it happening, it wasn't due to concert cancellations, so unless I hear otherwise, these shows are still on, so don't worry!

Next up, here's a new-ish local band I just recently discovered! Well, they actually broke up last month, but they're new to us (and I apologize for missing them until just now!) Named These Sins of Time, they were a hard rock trio influenced by artists like Papa Roach, Hinder, and Metallica. They were fronted by a young local solo artist named Alexa LeClair, who had used the name These Sins of Time in projects dating back to 2009 (like on this MySpace page), but the current incarnation existed only last year. They also featured guitarist Dalton Boissoneau & drummer Mitch Harris, and from what I can tell, they would have played heavier music than in Alexa's solo project, who reportedly released an EP last year which featured production & contributions from prolific local musician Kyle McKey (Full Circle, Stillbroke, etc.) These Sins of Time launched their Facebook & Twitter pages in April, and reportedly played some sort of gig at The Steamy Bean coffeehouse last spring featuring Alexa and Dalton. Posts alluded to recording a demo, playing more gigs, and adding more members last year, but updates stalled after October, and Alexa announced that T.S.O.T. was "no more" last month on the band's Twitter page.

I don't know why These Sins of Time broke up, but I'm surprised I've never heard of them until now! I can't judge the band (no posted material), but Alexa is a really good singer and a nice guitarist, and I'm sure that made a great foundation for the band when they were around! I probably wasn't familiar with her due to her age, but give her stuff a listen, she's someone to watch locally over the next few years! While there's no T.S.O.T. videos online that I know of, Alexa does have a few videos on her YouTube channel, including this video of her acoustic cover (with guitar) of Avenged Sevenfold's "Fiction". The audio quality could be clearer, but she does a good job on this one, so check out Alexa's work below and at the above links, and These Sins of Time are now in our inactive Sault Ontario band links!

And finally for today, here's a brand new Woods of Ypres video from 2010! This comes courtesy of Atlanta-based musician Jordan Owen, who was the former singer in a doom metal band named Incarceri 9. They opened for Woods of Ypres when they headlined at the One Eighty in nearby Stockbridge, Georgia on July 12th, 2010, and when Jordan was transferring files to a new computer, he found video clips that he shot of Woods of Ypres' set at this show, so he posted them onto his YouTube channel in one video on Tuesday! The video opens with text rememberances (set to "Crossing The 45th Parallel") of Woods of Ypres and both their and David Gold's impact on him, along with memories of the Stockbridge concert. The video footage starts 56 seconds in, and includes clips of "The Shams of Optimism", "Crossing The 45th Parallel", and "Your Ontario Town Is A Burial Ground", though nothing is shot in full, and it concludes with a picture of Jordan & David at the concert.

It's a nice video overall, and I like seeing Jordan add his rememberances of David and Woods of Ypres at the beginning! The video quality isn't bad either, but battery life precluded longer clips from what I can tell. It's great to see this online finally, even 18 months after the fact, so kudos to Jordan, and here's his Woods of Ypres video from Georgia in 2010!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews and more tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Stryper), A New Rock 101 Interview, And Much More!!

2012-01-10T15:55:00.003-05:00

How's about another news post for this Tuesday afternoon? I've been admittedly slow for news in recent days, but this should hopefully help, as we have a HUGE LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for next month, a cool new interview from a local radio station, this week's classic video, and some more assorted news stories, so read on for what's in the news today, and check out this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on Bring The Fallen in the post below this one!

The first major metal concert of 2012 at The Dreammaker's Theater at Kewadin Casino has been announced, and for you hair metal fans, a triple header of classic glam & metal action will be in store on February 24th! Platinum selling Christian metal legends Stryper will headline this concert, with hits like "Free", "Honestly", and "To Hell With The Devil" potentially in store for fans next month! Joining them will be Las Vegas metal standouts Slaughter (best known for hits like "Fly To The Angels" & "Up All Night") and Lynch Mob, the prominent hard rock quartet led by original Dokken guitarist George Lynch (whose hits included "Tangled In The Web" and "River of Love".) How's that for an impressive lineup of old school metal? Though I don't believe any of these bands have played Kewadin before, there's a bunch of local concert ties present. Slaughter, of course, opened for Jackyl at the now-Essar Center in May 2008, while Stryper frontman Michael Sweet sang with Boston when they played here the following month, and Lynch Mob bassist Robbie Crane was with Ratt when they came to Kewadin in June 2006, so each band has at least one member who played in the area before! Overall though, this is a nice quality package of old school glam metal and hard rock, so you definitely won't wanna miss it!

This concert is on February 24th at 7:00 PM, it is an all ages affair, and tickets are just $36 American, which means it's just $12 a band! Good value, I'd say. Tickets are now on sale at this location, and good seats are still available, so get hooked up A.S.A.P.! Tickets should also be available at the Kewadin box office or by phone at 1-800-KEWADIN. For more details, click here! This sounds like a high quality package of old school metal, and hopefully you guys take notice and make this a success! Stay tuned for any possible updates as they come in!

Next up, a new interview recently on Rock 101 has been posted on YouTube, and it's of Rock 101's Scott Cook interviewing "Eddie Trunk Rocks" and "That Metal Show" host Eddie Trunk on air on Friday during "Scott & Brian In The Morning"! Uploaded by YouTube user Maddog2000 on Sunday, the interview is about 28 minutes long and was posted onto Maddog2000's YouTube channel into two parts. The interview starts with a lot of talk about Eddie's work in TV and radio, before launching into talk about Van Halen's recent intimate return show (which Eddie was in attendance for) and how the band sounded in their return to the stage. This is a big story in hard rock, and the new Van Halen song "Tattoo" is promising (not a fan of the chorus though), so it's good to hear one of the most qualified people possible critique Van Halen as they sound right now! Sure, the discussion topic isn't local, but it's great to hear Scott and Eddie go back and forth, and hopefully more interviews on the station pop up over the coming months! Check out the first half of the interview below, and click here for part two!

Thirdly today, here's some assorted shorter news stories from the last little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by band or artist name:

Sault Ontario solo artist Mike Haggith's new studio album "Neighbourhood Watch" has had some extra changes made to it's track lising, notably adding two new songs ("Room 822" & "Leon The Janitor") and removing another ("Standing On The Edge".) For complete current details on the album, click here, and stay tuned for it's projected release on the 25th!
I'll likely be moving Swayze Train guitarist Mike Libertoski 's solo project to our inactive band links on Sunday due to a year's inactivity. Mike last updated his solo MySpace page on January 15th last year, possibly due to his work with Swayze Train and his tech-metal project Galactic Alignment keeping him busy. Hopefully he revisits his general solo stuff down the road though, he had a nice mix of styles and sounds there!
Local hardcore quartet Skull After Betrayl have parted ways with bassist Adam Brett, following his move to Niagara Falls late last year. Adam had played with the band since their inception, including at all of their 2011 concerts. The news was broken on the band's Facebook page on Friday. A bassist search is planned but has not begun yet, so I'll let you guys know when it does, and best of luck to Adam in Niagara Falls, I hope everything works out down there!

And finally for today, here's this week's classic video! With prominent local musician Mikey Hawdon returning home to rock The Canadian Nightclub while fronting his Toronto-based Ramones cover band The Merves on Saturday night, I thought it'd be a perfect time to tie in this week's classic video with his local metal band Lion Ride! News from them has been scarce since the fall, but there's still lots of material of theirs to go around online while we wait, including more videos that aren't on YouTube, like this one courtesy of The 705 Video Magazine's Facebook page! Likely shot by 705VM owner Fred Kember, this comes from Lion Ride's concert at Coch's Corner on August 28th, 2009, and it's of the band playing their song "I'm A Drug" from their debut EP "Awesome". I don't believe this is as popular in recent setlists as it was then, so it's good to hear on video! Featuring their 2009-2010 lineup (including then-bassist Diamond Brent Panther), this was uploaded onto Facebook a few days after this concert, and I apologize for it being clipped at the end. You can view the original video at http://facebook.com/video/video.php?v=124214113756, but note that the lighting on my YouTube upload was altered to make it brighter after I posted it.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!!! All credit for this video goes to Lion Ride, Fred, and the 705VM crew, I'm just trying to share this video with a wider audience like it deserves! The audio quality's kinda sketchy and the video was small and had poor lighting, but it's still a good and energetic performance from Lion Ride that should be seen by more fans, so definitely check it out below, and go see Mikey with The Merves this Saturday!!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes as the week rolls along, plus this weekend's concert previews! Thanks everyone!

Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Bring The Fallen

2012-01-10T00:00:00.002-05:00

It's time for our first Defunct Local Band Profile of 2012, and after three double profiles in the past four months, it's fitting to kick off the new year in style with a full one-band profile this time around! As always, this series revolves around profiling a defunct or inactive metal or hard rock band from the Sault Ste. Marie area, and as we've done since the series launched in 2010, this band was randomly chosen using a random number generator program. This month, we picked a very notable band from recent history, so read on for this month's profile!
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Bring The Fallen

Genre: Death/Thrash Metal

Hometown: Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Members:

Josh Stephney (The Bear Hunters), vocals

Andrew Chiarello (AtrophiA), lead guitar

Dan Souliere (AtrophiA, Bring The Misery), rhythm guitar

Nolan Rainville, bass

Travis St. Amour (Fountain of Betrayal, Bring The Misery), drums

Audio/Video: A decent amount of Bring The Fallen videos are online from their two year local run, scattered across numerous YouTube channels, but the best spots to see their videos would be on guitarist Dan Souliere's cousin Jesse's YouTube channel (featuring 3 Necropolis-era videos from 2009) and The Sault Metal Scene's YouTube channel, which features a handful of live videos from shows mostly in 2010, along with three unmastered mixes from their unreleased debut EP. To check everything out, search YouTube or the above links for "Bring The Fallen"! To embed here, I chose this 9 minute video of Bring The Fallen playing three songs at their headlining performance at Nite-Life Dance Club's portion of the Algoma Hope4Haiti fundraiser on February 20th, 2010, so give it a look, and thanks to YouTube user filghtmaster for the upload!

Info/Analysis: Originally named The Undead Warriors, Necropolis, and Silent Plague, Bring The Fallen launched circa January 2009, and made their live debut at the YMCA Battle of the Bands that March, winning first place. Notably, the band followed that early success with two more victories in December 2009's Algoma University Battle of the Bands and the Downtown Showdown battle in May 2010, helping raise their local profile! During their two year run, Bring The Fallen opened for notable bands like Upheaval of an Exorcist, Woods of Ypres, and Broadcast Zero, recorded songs towards an unreleased debut EP in late 2009, earned a 2010 cover feature in The Fresh Magazine, and were a frequent sight at numerous local metal concerts between 2009 & 2011, including many of the early Roosevelt Hotel metal nights. Band activity slowed in 2010 & early 2011, with many later concerts not featuring their full lineup. After numerous rumours about band tensions and their status spread early last year, Bring The Fallen would ultimately part ways in April 2011, just weeks after their last show. Since their demise, most of the band has stayed active locally in newer death metal bands like The Bear Hunters and Bring The Misery.

Bring The Fallen definitely deserve a lot of credit for their death metal proficiency and for helping usher in our current wave of death metal bands in Sault Ontario. They were tight and had some very brutal original material in their setlists, bolstered by some brutal growling by Josh Stephney and shredding lead guitar work by Andrew Chiarello, though the whole band are very talented! The fact that they won 3 battles of the bands in a 14 month span is proof enough of their talents, and luckily, they were heavy and easy to mosh to as well! Though their local run barely lasted two years, and their EP was never released, they were still a devastating and entertaining local sight, and maybe they'll come back down the road! Check them out at the above links!

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I hope you guys enjoyed this year's first Defunct Local Band Profile! So, what's coming up next in this series? A Sault Michigan band, but which one? Through completely random selection, I've chosen the inactive hard rock cover quartet Shift, featuring current members of Swayze Train, NoXcape, and Seeking Reverence in their lineup! That should be an interesting profile, but there's many more feature posts coming before we post that on or around February 10th, including our next poll results/new poll launch next Tuesday, which will include our next "Favourite ____ of 2011" post, so keep an eye out for that and much more news over the next week or so! Thanks everyone!

Lots Of Woods Of Ypres News And Notes!!

2012-01-09T14:10:00.001-05:00

Well guys, it's been a bit since we had a post dedicated to one band, but this post focuses around one very notable band in particular from Sault Ontario, that being blackened doom metal standouts Woods of Ypres. and though there's still sadness surrounding the untimely passing of David Gold last month, there's also some exciting news to get to concerning the band, so let's get right to most of the Woods of Ypres news I have for you guys!

Let's start with some more news about the future of Woods of Ypres. An official statement has been released by guitarist Joel Violette (who I'd assume is the band's de facto leader now) onto Earache Records' news blog on Friday, where he addressed his feelings towards David's passing and what lies ahead. He noted the additions of Brendan Hayter & Rae Amitay to their lineup in November and their European tour plans for this spring, but admitted that it's hard to say what's next for the band. Joel noted that he and David had a lot of projects planned for Woods of Ypres for the future, and that David would want them to be heard. Whether they'll eventually see the light of day isn't currently known, but according to Joel, the fact that David was the heart and essence of Woods of Ypres will always be kept in mind when factoring in future band activity. As of right now, Joel will focus on promoting and releasing "Woods V" on schedule, and Earache Records will be working closely with the Gold family going forward, but the future beyond "Woods V" remains to be seen. To read Joel's full statement on the future of Woods of Ypres, visit this location!

Personally, while I am a full proponent of putting out unreleased or demo material (like the remaining "Woods 4.5" material and their cover of Bathory's "Lake of Fire"), I don't know how much further Woods of Ypres should be taken after David's passing. Even if the go-ahead was there from the Gold family to continue the band in a live or studio setting, David would be very hard to replace effectively (he basically was Woods of Ypres), and it wouldn't seem right having no original members left if they did. Maybe I'm wrong though, but that's my two cents. As Woods of Ypres or not, I think Joel, Brendan, and Rae should stick together in some sort of band, as I think they have old and new music to share with the world, but who knows what lies ahead.

For now, it appears to be a "one day at a time" scenario, starting with the "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light" release, which is still on schedule for a release on February 27th in accordance with the the wishes of David's family and bandmates. I think the release was pushed back from a late January release that David alluded to last year, but maybe that's to include some tribute material in the album booklet (I'm not sure.) If you want to ensure you get your copy of the new album, then good news, as Earache Records are now taking pre-orders for the CD and related packages! Click here to see the differing "Woods V" merchandise, which includes the album on CD for $12, on limited edition coloured vinyl for $20, and in varying packages which include items like t-shirts and posters. The vinyl release includes one record in differing colour choices with 10 tracks and a second 7'' vinyl with just "Alternate Ending" and a special mix of "Finality" by "Woods V" producer Siegfried Meier that is exclusive to the vinyl. Click the above links for pre-ordering details!

Also, since the album was leaked last month, the "Woods V" album cover by David D'Angelo has been edited to include the band's logo and a new title font, and the track listing has been altered as well according to the postings on Earache Records' store. Now, it only lists one of the "Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye)" tracks, while adding a new song named "Keeper of the Ledger". I don't know whether the title was just changed or this is is a new song, but if I hear more, I'll let you guys know!

Definitely consider pre-ordering "Woods V", as Earache Records is offering free shipping on the CD-only packages, and this will ensure that you get Woods of Ypres' last recorded studio album on-time when shipping starts next month. If nothing else, stay tuned for "Woods V" updates as they come in, and make sure to pick it up whenever you can! While we're on the subject of Woods of Ypres albums for sale, David's sister Marie has revealed a list of band merchandise that the family has stock of for sale. As posted on his personal Facebook page on Thursday, the family has copies of all Woods of Ypres CDs except "Woods 4: The Green Album" along with copies of the "Allure of the Earth" and "Home" vinyl singles and two types of band posters. If you're interested or want to inquire about pricing, e-mail Marie at mariechristinegold@hotmail.com, with PayPal transactions made through davidypresgold@gmail.com. Additional merchandise will be made available for purchase alongside the "Woods V" release and (this is news to me) a planned David Gold memorial concert! Details for it are not public yet, but if this goes down (hopefully locally), it should be a can't miss show, and if word comes out about it, I'll let you guys know for sure! For now, pick up your Woods of Ypres albums and merchandise (old and new) at the above links and help cover David's final expenses!

Finally for this all Woods/David post, some new concert videos from Woods of Ypres' last tour have been posted online! A YouTube user named Kyle (online handle "opeth027") posted 5 videos from Woods of Ypres' concert at The Magic Stick Lounge in Detroit on May 11th onto his YouTube channel on Friday. The videos are of Woods of Ypres playing their songs "By The Time You Read This (I Will Already Be Dead)", "Wet Leather", "Awaiting The Inevitable", "Falling Apart", and "Pining (For You)", so click each link to watch each video! Most are full, but "By The Time You Read This" has a late start. The audio quality on these videos is pretty good, as is the video quality, though the lighting doesn't seem to be up to par, especially when it comes to ex-drummer Evan Madden's visibility. Kudos to Kyle for finally uploading these videos, and seeing as this was the closest show to the Soo on their last tour, maybe it holds some extra significance? Either way, these are nice videos, so check them out at the above links, and here's Woods of Ypres playing their song "Pining (For You)" in Detroit from this past May!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for our next Defunct Local Band Profile on Bring The Fallen tomorrow, followed by more news and updates this week! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (As It Stands), What Would Have Been For Woods Of Ypres, And New Videos!!

2012-01-07T02:49:00.005-05:00

It's time for another news post at the SMS, and what do we have on this Saturday morning? Well, today, we have some new audio uploads towards our next feature post, this week's classic video, and some news concerning what would have been for a prominent local band this year, but first, here's a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT!!

Three local metal bands will hit the stage for the first time in 2012 in two weeks at The Roosevelt Hotel! Local hardcore standouts As It Stands and Changing Waves will rock the local stage for the first time in over 4 months on January 19th at The Rosie along with local death metal quintet The Bear Hunters in their own 2012 debut, and if you notice your calendars, the 19th is a Thursday! Is this show part of the Rosie metal night lineage (it's the 41st metal night if true), or is it just the same day? Time will tell, but I'll note that though it's pushing a month since the current promoters officially confirmed a metal night, this does coincide with the old bi-weekly schedule, so take that for what it's worth. This will be the first As It Stands show in Sault Ontario since early August (though they did play a concert in Espanola last month), while it will be Changing Waves' first concert since early September, so it'll be a long time coming to see their hardcore assaults again, and you know The Bear Hunters will bring lots of brutality themselves as this concert's opening act! This concert will have a 19+ age limit, 10:30 PM start time, and no cover charge. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page!

Officially a Rosie metal night or not, this will be a solid collection of local metal bands, and with the waits from their last concerts stretching from 1 to 5 months, it sure doesn't hurt to see them again on stage! Hopefully I can make it out (especially with no Friday morning classes this semester), and stay tuned for updates! While we're on the subject, their oddly titled original song "Oh Herm, Herm Delish" is back online on drummer John Mignacca's SoundCloud page, newly mixed & mastered by Brendan Clace at Dimension Studios, so click here to stream it, and stay tuned for much more on As It Stands' 3rd EP as news rolls in!

Next up, here's the latest news relating to Woods of Ypres and the late David Gold... well, more specifically, what would have been. Another David Gold memorial Facebook page has been launched, but this one is ran by Earache Records and guitarist Joel Violette, and it's already turned out to be a good source for future band news, especially as official band pages were controlled by David only for the most part. One piece of news learned through there was that Woods of Ypres had added Brendan Hayter & Rae Amitay as their new bassist & drummer in November (replacing the Madden brothers), though with David's death, nothing came to fruition towards future work with Woods of Ypres. Brendan is a bassist from the Boston, Massachusetts area, most recently playing in a black metal band named Obsidian Tongue, while Rae (who was the first female band member since keyboardist Jessica Rose in 2007) is a Berklee College of Music graduate, a talented session drummer, and a writer at the website Metal Review, where she posted a very nice tribute post to David on Thursday morning featuring quotes from fans, friends, and surviving band members. According to posts there, Woods of Ypres were planning to rehearse this month towards their first European tour run early this year in support of "Woods V", though details about it weren't elaborated on.

Definitely check out Rae's post at this location, and you can feel the sadness and emotion from all who contributed. I have no doubt at all that Brendan and Rae would have been great choices for Woods of Ypres and what would have been a landmark European tour, but with David's death, it's extremely hard for me to picture the band moving forward in a live setting. Do give their work a listen though, I can see why they were picked to join the band in November! I have much more to share as it relates to David, Woods of Ypres' future, and the "Woods V" release in our next post, so stay tuned for it in the coming days!

We'll close today's post with new videos, and first, here's this week's classic video, our first of the new year! Apologies for it being late, I'll try to get them back on a rough mid-week schedule. With Tym Morrison's solo acoustic shows back in gear for Bossy's Pub N' Grub starting this afternoon at 1:00 PM, it made sense to focus this week's video on him, and I've chosen another video from his metal cover trio Caveman Morrison to upload to our YouTube channel this week! Like our earlier uploads of their covers of "You May Be Right" and "Brown Eyed Girl", this comes from a late 2009 concert at The Rockstar Bar, but in this case, it's of Caveman Morrison covering Stevie Ray Vaughan's "Pride & Joy", and covering it pretty well too. Not a very heavy song, but they do it justice! Featuring their 2009-2010 lineup, including current drummer Rick White on bass and Jeff "Shrek Ogre" Richards (now of the Barrie rock band The Angels Of Fire) on drums, this video was filmed by a concert attendee and later uploaded in .swf format onto Caveman Morrison's website at http://tymmorrison.com/cavemanmorrison/video6.html. Like before, I apologize for the lighting and the watermark late in the video, those were on the original files.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT WAS INTENDED!!! All credit for this video goes to Caveman Morrison and the original filmer, I'm just trying to share this performance with a wider audience like it deserves! It's a solid video and hopefully we'll see Caveman Morrison back soon, but for now, definitely check out Tym's solo shows on Saturday afternoons at Bossy's! For now, here's to the first of 52 weekly classic videos for 2012, with Caveman Morrison's cover of "Pride & Joy"!

And finally, here's some new audio uploads I also made to our YouTube channel a couple days ago. On Tuesday, we're profiling the former local death metal quintet Bring The Fallen in our first Defunct Local Band Profile of 2012, and as I often like to do when I post a profile in this series, I've uploaded a few media files of the band in question onto YouTube. In this case, it's the three publically available studio quality songs from their unreleased debut EP, now on YouTube for the first time! These (and possibly some extra material) were recorded with producer/local bassist Brad Griffith in September 2009 using recording time won at the YMCA Battle of the Bands that March, but the EP never saw a release before their breakup in April 2011. Last I heard, the recordings were waiting to be mastered, and as such, the available songs we have are unmastered mixes. As downloaded from Bring The Fallen's MySpace page (where you can still stream them), the posted songs from the EP were "Stand Before", "Defiling Despondence", and "Exposed Embankment", so click each link to stream the songs on YouTube. NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for these songs goes to the former members of Bring The Fallen, I just want to share their hard work with a wider audience like it deserves!

Unmastered or not, these are quality slices of Bring The Fallen's impressive original resume, and there's some good brutal metal to be had with these songs! It'd be cool to get a hold of any other songs they recorded with Brad in 2009, or to see them officially released of course, but for now, hopefully these uploads will help spread the posthumous word about Bring The Fallen! I've embedded "Stand Before" below, but check out more at the above links, and watch out for our Defunct Local Band Profile on them on Tuesday!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for much more news in the coming days, along with our Defunct Profile on Bring The Fallen on Tuesday! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (That's Chester & Tym Morrison), Weekend Concert Previews, And The Return Of Moss!!

2012-01-05T03:48:00.002-05:00

Alright, who's ready for weekend concert previews? I've got some for you guys in our first concert preview post of 2012, but it's supplanted by a notable band reunion across the river and the face that most of the weekend's shows are newly announced, making them LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, so here's what you need to know! (UPDATED: Friday, 2:52 AM)

Sault Ontario classic hard rock quintet That's Chester are returning to the local stage TOMORROW NIGHT!! Apologies for the short notice, this show was only just announced yesterday. Almost two months after their last concerts, this talented veteran local outfit will return to Docks Riverfront Grill for their first gig of 2012, in what appears to be a Friday-only engagement this weekend (but if hear of a Saturday concert, I'll let you guys know!) No matter what though, it's great to see That's Chester back on the local concert stage, and they apparently have four new songs to add to their live setlist tomorrow night, so you know you'll wanna be at Docks to hear the new stuff (along with their old standards!) Admission is likely $4 for this show, you must be 19 to attend, and there's an announced start time of 11:00 PM. For more details, visit the official Facebook event page! If you're in the mood for some solid classic hard rock covers, Docks is definitely the place to be tomorrow night, so consider a trip down to the riverfront to rock out with That's Chester! For a preview, here's their cover of Deep Purple's "Highway Star" at Docks in 2010!

Also in new concerts, Caveman Morrison frontman Tym Morrison's solo acoustic show is coming back on SATURDAY (and next week), but not at The Service Grill. One month after his most recent solo concert took place, Tym will break out his unplugged covers at Bossy's Pub & Grub on Pim Street (seconds from The Canadian Nightclub) over the next two Saturdays in what is hoped to be the start of another weekly concert arrangement for him! These concerts do have a unique early listed start time of 1:00 PM, so if that's accurate, the Bossy's arrangement won't impact likely night concerts from Tym or Caveman Morrison in the future, which is handy! Notably, this Saturday's show will also be Tym's first appearance at Bossy's (formerly Smack Daddy's) since the Hollow reunion gig in August, and it's good to see him back there for an unplugged show! As I mentioned above, both this Saturday & next Saturday's shows are at 1:00 PM, I'd bring ID just in case you're carded, and there's no announced cover charge. For more details, click here & here for each show's respective Facebook event page.

Hopefully this is the start of another successful concert arrangement for Tym, and I live pretty close to Bossy's, so maybe I'll drop in one of these Saturday afternoons to check out his solo work! It's been too long as it is. As this new arrangement starts THIS SATURDAY, let's preview his return to the solo stage with this 2008 video of Tym and ex-Half Past singer Luke LeBlanc covering Extreme's "More Than Words"!

Finally, here's the two weekend hard rock shows I already knew about, and they're courtesy of Sault Michigan hard rock quintet Swayze Train! One weekend after rocking The Rapids Lounge for the first time, this talented local supergroup will return to Kewadin Casino's bar for a second consecutive weekend of proficient metal and hard rock covers, and I'm hearing great things, so you know this will be worth attending! Notably, the band will be featuring End of Existence frontman Bob "Orb Hearthstone" Helsten on drums in lieu of the absent Tyler Tidwell for this weekend's concerts. A reason for Tyler's absence wasn't publicized, but the news was announced on the band's Facebook page last night. Good choice to fill in, as Orb is more than capable as a drummer (his recent work with Elipzis and Great Bodily Harm is proof), so watch out for some great drumming this weekend! As usual for Swayze Train's increasingly frequent stops at Kewadin Casino, these concerts (tomorrow & Saturday night) will be 21+ affairs with no cover charge and 10:00 PM-ish start times. For more details, visit the Kewadin Casino entertainment page and the above links!

It's always good to see Swayze Train gracing the local stage, and though I still have no media of theirs to preview them with, I know their talent will speak for itself, so consider their shows this weekend for your concert planning! Visit the above links for more, and I'll keep you posted as Swayze Train updates chug into the SMS station!

And finally for today, we have a band return to note on here, as Eckerman/Strongs, Michigan hard rockers Moss are back! You may remember them as "Moss of Eckerman" from their now-deleted PureVolume page, though that name was just to distinguish themselves from similarly named bands on there. Information was lacking on them back then, partly owing to their mid-2000s breakup, but they're back after 7 years away as part of Werehold Records! Moss' current lineup features 4/5ths of their old lineup, including Life's Eclipse members & brothers David Mills & Jason Mills on bass/vocals & guitar respectively, along with Nicholas Kabelman on guitar & Robert Kabelman on drums, with only a former member named Jason (a.k.a. Ogre) not a part. According to the bio on their new Facebook page, Moss were originally active from 1995 onward, are influenced by bands like Pantera & The Beatles, and describe their sound as "rock from a better time". Media isn't posted there yet, and though I do have mp3 copies of songs they posted on PureVolume, I know that members weren't entirely satisfied with the quality, so time will tell how the new Moss sounds!

Moss always piqued my interest with their 1990s-styled hard rock/metal sound, and if they can build on the promise I heard on songs like "Undefeated", they'll definitely make a mark in the Sault Michigan area once again! As always, I'll keep you guys updated on Moss as news comes in, and they're now back in our Sault Michigan band links on your right! That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news & our Defunct Local Band Profile on Bring The Fallen over the next few days! Thanks everyone!

Local Metal Video Showcase!!

2012-01-03T01:19:00.001-05:00

It's time for our first all-video post of 2012, and we've got a nicely varied selection of new videos to share from YouTube with a local metal relevance today! So in this post, we have a new song from a local solo artist, another new track from a Sault Michigan area band, and some promising drumming videos from a young local talent, but first, here's some new live video footage of a notable local band, so here's what you need to know!

Another new video from Woods of Ypres' last tour run has been posted onto YouTube! This comes courtesy of the YouTube channel run by Winnipeg progressive metal band Grand Master, who uploaded this video on Thursday, and it's from the Woods of Ypres concert that they opened on May 16th in Regina, Saskatchewan. The video is split into two parts, starting with about 1:50 of a Grand Master song that night (which doesn't sound too bad), but the last 1:42 is of Woods of Ypres playing their song "Wet Leather" that night. It's decent quality, but the lens seems wrong for the angle that the filmer shot, and the vocals of both David Gold and Grand Master frontman Alec Schaefer are almost inaudible. Still, the footage isn't bad, and it's great to see it uploaded even 8 months later, so check out the newest Woods of Ypres footage (plus Grand Master) below, and if you want to skip to Woods of Ypres' portion, fast forward to 1:51 in the video!

Next up, here's the latest audio material from Eckerman, Michigan metal trio Swampghas (featuring Jason Mills of Life's Eclipse and ex-Half A Man drummer Doug Reed), who uploaded the projected first song from their planned debut album "The Raco Tower Incident" onto their label Werehold Records' YouTube channel on Thursday! Clocking in at just over 2 minutes long, the song's called "Bar Burner", and it's pretty heavy, though surprisingly repetitive given it's length. There's promise here though, and I can't wait to hear more from them and Jason's other projects (one of which recently reunited), so stay tuned for more on the heavier Werehold Records bands! For now, give "Bar Burner" a listen below, and keep an eye out for more from Swampghas as the year rolls on!

Third today, is your local metal band looking for a new drummer? Maybe Jonny Amendola is who you're looking for! If you're not familiar with him, Jonny's been doing work with the local pop rock cover band Cherry Crush in recent months, but he definitely has a metal background as well. His dad & bandmate John Amendola (also of Boogie Fever) has been spreading the word in recent days about new drum videos that have been posted of Jonny covering metal tracks, and though the first one was sadly blocked on copyright grounds, the newest one is still online! It's of his drum cover of Avenged Sevenfold's "God Hates Us", augmented by professional lighting, and it was uploaded onto Cherry Crush's YouTube channel a week ago today. Apparently, Jonny's looking to join a metal band of some type, and if this video's any indication, he'd sure be a quality addition! Very promising young drummer, he knows this song very well, and if you guys are looking for that piece of your lineup, Jonny's worth contacting! Click here for more, and check out Jonny Amendola's A7X cover below!

And finally, local hard rock solo artist Mike Cliffe posted some new solo instrumental tracks onto his YouTube channel on Friday! Both of them employ a more experimental softer take on his creative talents, and the visualizations the songs are set to indeed help the mood of them! One is a collaborative track called "Nu-Instrumental" that he recorded with Grand Rapids folk duo The Ducks, while the other new track is called "Starlight" and appears to be just Mike solo. I've embedded "Starlight" below, so give his creative experimental talents a listen, and be sure to check out his vast array of solo material A.S.A.P. for a lot of quality songs, many of which have a heavier bent!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and weekend concert previews shortly, including some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!! Thanks everyone!

Where Are The New Albums? January 2012 Update

2012-01-02T00:00:00.003-05:00

It's time for our first monthly feature post of 2012, and as could be expected (given that it's the 2nd of the month), it's our latest "Where Are The New Albums?" post! This month, we're looking at the current release statuses of 12 albums from 11 local bands (5 of which have new material, as indicated by the title in italics), and I'll note right now that one CD was removed from this series, that being the now-released "Everything Will Die" by Garden of Bedlam (pick it up today at The Rad Zone), but there's still a lot on the horizon! So, what should you know about the slate of local metal CDs that could come out in 2012? Read on to find out!
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April Eyes - Hollow Hope

Rumoured Songs: "Goodbye", "Left Behind", "The Only Road I've Ever Known", "Fall", "Reflections", "Obsession", Escape", "I Can't Let Go", "Absolution", "Hollow Hope"

Background: The oft-renamed April Eyes (previously known as By The Gods & April Eyes) is the solo project masterminded by Bear Hunters & Borderline Divine guitarist Mitch Sirie. He's been working on solo material for some time now, featuring him on all instruments, including vocals and bass along with the guitar tracks. Over time, Mitch has deleted older audio tracks and blog entries from this project's MySpace page, but continually replaces them with newer material, although some aren't planned for an imminent album release. Blog entries in 2011 have alluded to Mitch recording and releasing a solo concept album named "Hollow Hope", which he claims will be a "shocking" full length album, though it's been set back due to "circumstances". Featuring a mix of progressive & death metal with acoustic folk and indie rock, check out the newest samples of April Eyes/Mitch's solo material at his official MySpace page!

Current Release Status: I have no real idea. Honestly, this might not even get a release where it'd be on sale anywhere, but who knows! Mitch told me in e-mail conversations that he hoped to have a physical release of "Hollow Hope" last year, for what that's worth, but we're obviously past that poi. The musical quality and songwriting on his material is very underrated, so I imagine that a release of "Hollow Hope" would get a good reception if it did come out! Though concrete data on it has been lacking for the later half of 2011, I'll keep you all posted if anything new is announced!
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As It Stands' third EP

Rumoured Songs: "Conception", "Big Problem, Little Lock City", "Rise Above", "One Last Chance", "One Less Than Wayne Gretzky", "Big Bucks, No Whammy", "Eeny, Meeny, Miney, Ho", "Everything Terrible", "Oh Herm, Herm Delish", "Stay Together For The Kids" (Blink-182 cover)

Background: Continuing their high success levels since their local re-emergence last year, hardcore quintet As It Stands started recording sessions for their third EP with Metalworks Studios in Mississauga in July with producer Kevin Dietz. The sessions lasted just a few days, but from what I hear, a lot got accomplished! You can see some of the happenings from the sessions on their official studio vlog, which features some audio samples and video of some members recording their parts. The vlog also confirms that their cover of Blink-182's "Stay Together For The Kids" was recorded in Mississauga, and that the songs will be part of an EP, not a full length album as was previously believed. It's currently unclear whether the songs they recorded at Stereo Soul Studios in 2010 and/or in Stoney Creek last year were re-recorded at Metalworks, or will be added to the album as is. A new track, oddly titled "Oh Herm, Herm Delish" was posted onto SoundCloud yesterday, with studio copies of "Conception" & "Big Problem, Little Lock City" also being uploaded to their Facebook page last month, both of which you can stream at this location. Stay tuned for more news on this EP this year!

Current Release Status: As It Stands seem to have everything under control and well planned for the sessions and their studio work, but public word has been minimal over the past couple of months (aside from the new songs and a gig in Espanola last month.) Keep an eye out for updates, album information, and so forth, as I'm hearing good things!
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The Bear Hunters - Bloodthirst

Rumoured Songs: "Bloodthirst", "Succumb To Eternity", "Dominate", "Overthrown", "Casualties Of War", "Collapse The Sun", "Render This Void", "Karma"

Background: Local death metal quintet The Bear Hunters formally announced that they'd begun recording for their debut album on May 10th, just three days after adding guitarist Josh Stephney to the band. The news was broken on their Facebook page, though details are scant so far on the CD. Named after their song "Bloodthirst", this will be an EP release, and it is being self-recorded. There's more to say on the recording front as it related to others in the scene, but nothing's been publically stated. Guitarist Mitch Sirie's Facebook page has also kept fans updated as to the EP's progress, if you wanted to get possible details there as well. More details are sure to leak in soon, so keep an eye out!

Current Release Status: Given the lack of concrete information we've heard, I have no positive idea. It was definitely being recorded, but public word on the sessions is either slow, secretive, or has been put on hold, but the band haven't addressed their album lately for us to know either way. Stay tuned for possible details, as I know The Bear Hunters do want to see this disc completed!
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Gates of Winter - Perihelion

Rumoured Songs: "The Stars Call My True Name", "Edin Na Zu", "Dimensions", "Time Warp", "Wormhole Mechanics"

Background: Despite a hiatus from live performances lasting over three years, Gates of Winter never broke up, and are slowly working on their follow-up to 2008's "Lux Aeterna". The first glimpse of the new album was unveiled in February 2010, when frontman/producer Lee Maines uploaded a (now-deleted) snippet of their new song "The Stars Call My True Name" onto his YouTube channel, and he followed that up with two more demo clips that June. The band launched a new Facebook page in August 2010 to keep fans updated on the sessions, including the unveiling of a new song title, "Time Warp", while Sault native Jon Morrison was announced as the album's drummer in November 2010. Some live rehearsal videos were posted online at this location in May, and on November 6th, bassist Steve Furgiuele confirmed in a YouTube video that the album, now titled "Perihelion", is planned for release in December 2012, with some older re-recordings likely for the summer. Another new song, tentatively called "Wormhole Mechanics", was previewed in this video that Lee uploaded as well last month. More updates are likely to come over the coming year, so keep an eye out!

Current Release Status: Well, if the band says that "Perihelion" is coming out in December 2012, then I'm inclined to believe them. It's been a long road for them to get this album completed due to the members' own personal commitments, but until we hear otherwise, I'd say circle your calendars for a December 2012 release for Gates of Winter's long awaited second full length album! For now though, check out Gates of Winter's posted demos by clicking here!
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Late & Loud's debut album

Rumoured Songs: "Midnight Man", "Down Like This", "Whipeout", "Never Again". "Love Letter Lockdown", "Whisper Of The Damned", "Live For Excess", "Fast As A Bitch"

Background: A newer metal band in the Sault Ontario metal scene, Late & Loud surprisingly announced plans to being recording a demo in late January, despite their relative newness to the scene, not having launched internet pages until November 2010. Though described as a demo, Late & Loud's debut does appear to be packaged more like a standard album, with a photo shoot for it having taken place on February 26th (cl ick here to see the photos.) I believe this is being self-recorded, and updates towards recording sessions have been sporadically posted on Late & Loud's official Facebook page in recent weeks. Most recently, the band released a video confirming it's likely release this month, along with instrumental samples of three songs, and a confirmed tracklist of at least nine songs. Stay tuned to the above links for more details as they come in!

Current Release Status: Though word has been quiet in recent weeks, this month is looking likely, from what I can tell. They've been working on this demo for months, and whether it will really count as an "album" or not, fans should be jacked up for it's release when it finally is finished! Check the above links for samples and news on Late & Loud's first demo!
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Lion Ride's first full length album

Rumoured Songs: "Stick It In", "Snail Trail", "Bang Bang, Bye Bye"

Background: Lion Ride entered the studio for the first sessions of their upcoming full length CD in April 2010 at Toronto's BWC Studios with producer Greg Dawson, same as when current & ex-band members recorded Detroit's last album in 2009. The band recorded four songs at those sessions, including "Stick It In", which was uploaded onto their MySpace page in early May as a preview. The studio version of another original "Snail Trail" was later posted on BWC Studios' MySpace page, with another new song "Bang Bang, Bye Bye" featured as backing music in a longboarding culture video in June. Delays & external commitments (musical and personal) have delayed the album's progress, and Lion Ride would acknowledge & apologize for the sparse album updates on their Facebook page in November 2010 with this video featuring studio session clips set to "Snail Trail". As of February, they were back writing new material presumably for this album, and a Facebook posting on March 7th hinted towards a return to BWC soon, but band news has stalled again this year, leaving future album news unclear.

Current Release Status: We've heard that Lion Ride's new album would be released last fall & this summer, but now pages just say it's "coming soon". I don't know when we'll see the album, what with the lack of real album updates recently, and unless recording sessions we don't know about happened, I doubt we'll see this come out until next year. However, you can get a preview of the CD by checking out the studio versions of "Stick It In" at this location and "Snail Trail" by clicking here!
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Mike Haggith - Neighbourhood Watch

Rumoured Songs: "Stalking Booze & The Raptor", "Door To My Mind", "Nightmare On Reed Street", The Man In Green" (Black Hole Suns cover), "The Ballad of K2/K3", "The Day The Lights Went Out", "Limb Coast", "Neighbourhood Watch", "My Angel", "It Takes Time" (Black Hole Suns cover), "Room 822", "Leon The Janitor"

Background: Scheduled to be local solo musician Mike Haggith's 45th full length studio album, "Neighbourhood Watch" (previously titled "Space 82" and "410 To Scotland) is scheduled to be a concept album based on differing human experiences. Now planned for release on January 25th through Rotten Records after a delay, "Neighbourhood Watch" should be available on both mp3 and CD formats, and twelve tracks have been announced for it, including the already unveiled "Limb Coast", two covers of Kincheloe project The Black Hole Suns' songs (an instrumental mix of one of them can be heard here), and a mixture of previously heard & new material, though previously announced songs "Orion", "On A Cloud", "Who Owns Space 82?", and "Standing On The Edge" were removed from the track listing last year. Click here for complete album details, including the album artwork. Stay tuned for more details on "Neighbourhood Watch" at this location, as Mike's generally good for keeping fans up to date on his upcoming solo projects!

Current Release Status: Originally planned to come out last month, Mike confirmed last year that technical issues have caused it to be delayed almost two months to a January 25th release. That said, Mike has always been forthcoming & honest about album release details and hangups, so we should see Neighbourhood Watch as scheduled later this month, but stay tuned in case anything changes!
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Riverin's self-titled debut EP

Rumoured Songs: "Attitude", "They Lost You", "A Cold Wind", "Deflower", "Valentine", "Raining In December", "Trenches", "Something Else"

Background: An industrial hard rock project from former Dirty Virgin & Silver Dream bandmates Matt Hicks and Matt Clement, Riverin slowly worked on their debut EP for much of 2010 at Matt Hicks' Quartertone Studios. The original recording sessions for this self-produced EP have finished, and it was said to be released "soon" as of July 2010. All six songs to initially be included on the EP are now featured on their MySpace page to stream for free! E-mail correspondence with Matt Clement last fall detailed how the band were looking into the CD development process to release the album in time for a planned CD release show in the future featuring guest musicians. Two new songs, "Trenches" & "Something Else", have been announced, with "Trenches" later posted online in May, but it's unclear if they'll be on the EP or not.

Current Release Status: Not sure, but things did seem to be on the right track, given that the EP's tracks are all recorded. The way it's sounding to me, the release of the EP will likely tie in to their debut concert as a CD release show, but we haven't heard anything official from the band in over six months, which is slightly worrying. Hopefully when it does come out, it will deliver a good package of unique music, so stay tuned for updates!
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Sykotyk Rampage - "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Stupidity"

Rumoured Songs: "Running", "Legend, "Garden", "Metal", "Rain", "Parley", "Wait", "Shrooms", "Dynamite", "Acreage", "McDonalds", "Alright"

Background: Originally announced in August 2010, "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Stupidity" is the second half of Sykotyk Rampage's conceptual "Genius Mushroom" series which delves "into the realm of hallucinogenic musical brainscans". Considered Sykotyk Rampage's 25th album, it was originally the first half of a double album before it was split from it's predecessor "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Intellect", which has since been released. One track named "Silence" was removed from the second "Genius Mushrooms" album's track listing at that time as well. Sykotyk Rampage recorded this album at River Front Recreation Studios, with sessions taking place at varying points over the latter half of 2010. The first "Genius Mushrooms" album (and 4 other companion 2011 releases) were all posted online in August, with just "...Thoughts of Stupidity" left, though keep an eye out, as you never know when the band will reveal their latest work of harsh music for harsh minds!

Current Release Status: The original announced release date for this album was December, but no new Sykotyk Rampage albums even made it online for free streaming until this August. Oddly, the second "Genius Mushrooms" album is still unreleased despite the fact that 4 newer albums not even announced until August have came out earlier. Still, I have it on good authority that "Genius Mushrooms With Thoughts Of Stupidity' will come out (hopefully) very soon, so keep an eye out for it, and click here to tide yourself over with the band's other five albums from this year!
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Tym Morrison's second solo album

Rumoured Songs: "Moon Patrol", "Dungeons & Dragons", "Nag Hamedi", "The Reason Why", "The Dark Shred", "Song For Jen", "No Name", "Amy", "Lay It On The Line", "Someday", "How I'm Wanting You More"

Background: I honestly don't know a lot about the background for Tym Morrison's second album, but he has posted samples of nine songs for his "next album" onto the music player on his official website! The songs are all of good quality, and feature Tym in familiarly good form! Original information about recording sessions for his solo album are either very sparse or were made quite a while ago, so I don't know a lot about it, but the songs were likely self-recorded at Morrison Studio Productions with Tym on all instruments save for the programmed drums. Status updates on Tym's personal Facebook page last year have alluded to recent recording sessions and plans for a double album, but it's unknown if the above songs would all be included. It should be noted that many of Tym's more recent solo songs on YouTube have been either acoustic or comedic in nature, but I can't see many of the comedic ones making the cut for an album release.

Current Release Status: I don't have any real idea, but recent news about recording sessions and a double album are certainly promising! Hopefully Tym does release these songs in the near future, as his older samples and newer material deserve an audience! For now though, check out the above links to hear what he has to share that could make the cut!
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Woods of Ypres - "Woods 4.5: You Were The Light" & "Woods V: Grey Skies & Electric Light"

Rumoured Songs (W4.5): "You Were The Light", "Falling Apart"

Rumoured Songs (W5): "Career Suicide (Is Not Suicide)", "Travelling Alone", "Alternate Ending", "Lightning & Snow", "Finality", "Death Is Not An Exit", "Adora Vivos", "Silver", "Modern Life Architecture", "Kiss My Ashes (Goodbye) (Parts 1 & 2)"

Background: Recording for what was intended to be Woods of Ypres' fifth album took place in August 2010 at Stereo Soul Studios. Intended to be a 5 track EP, producer Miguel Gauthier's Facebook page kept fans updated on the sessions, along with various Woods of Ypres pages. Originally titled "Woods V: You Were The Light", release plans noticeably changed when the band signed with Earache Records last fall. With the label desiring a full length follow-up to "Woods IV", frontman David Gold & guitarist Joel Violette hit the studio in August to record a new full length "Woods V" at Beach Road Studios in Goderich, Ontario with producer Siegfried Meier, who also kept fans up to date on these sessions via his Twitter page. After months of scattered song leaks and album hints, Earache leaked "Woods V" online (plus lyrics & the album cover) under sad circumstances last month following the passing of David Gold in a car accident on December 21st. Since then, the songs have spread fast online, though it's unknown if plans to release "W5" formally on January 30th are still in place or not.

As for the "original Woods V", it's now considered "Woods 4.5", and though definitive release details for that EP aren't known, two songs were issued in a limited edition vinyl single release named "Home" through Practical Art Records in April (get ordering details here), and you can stream them at the band's CBC Radio 3 page!

Current Release Status: For "Woods 4.5", I have no clue. I originally thought it would either come out after "Woods V" or with it as a bonus disc, but knowing it's length and status due to the "Woods V" sessions, it may have depended on a release through David Gold's own Practical Art Records label. Whether we ever see the remaining "W4.5" songs is up in the air, but how about "Woods V"? I'd assume Earache Records will keep plans intact to release it on January 30th, but death can throw things out of whack, and I wouldn't be surprised if something changed relating to it's release. Keep an eye out for updates on any future Woods of Ypres CD releases, including hopefully "Woods V" at the end of the month!
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I hope you guys enjoyed this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post! Our feature post schedule continues in style on January 10th when we feature Bring The Fallen in our next Defunct Local Band Profile, but until then, stay tuned for lots of news and updates from the local scene over the next week! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (Monkey's Uncle & Swayze Train) And More Assorted News Stories!!

2012-01-01T16:00:00.001-05:00

Let's help ring in the new year with our first proper news post of 2012! All of this is from late last year in terms of when it was announced, but hey, you get to some stories when you can, as it was a hectic end of the month. Today, we've got a new video and photos relating to major Kewadin Casino concerts, details on some local musicians' band member searches, and leading things off, here's some LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS!!

Kewadin Casino's entertainment page has been updated again to reflect a few concerts at The Rapids Lounge through August, including the local returns of Monkey's Uncle to Kewadin Casino's bar! The talented local hard rock quartet was absent from Kewadin's schedule for the first three months of the year, leading to some questions about their status, but they'll definitely be rocking The Rapids Lounge for at least three weekends midway through 2012. That said, you can see them there on April 13th & 14th, June 1st & 2nd, and August 3rd & 4th, which doesn't seem as frequent for them as we're used to, though it's possible that they have more shows at other venues that we have yet to hear about. For reference sake, they'll be playing at the St. Ignace Kewadin Casino in late March, as an idea of when they're returning from this likely break. That said, these six new local Monkey's Uncle concerts should be 21+ affairs with no cover charges and 19+ age limits. Check the above links for more details! It's good to see Monkey's Uncle alive & well, and hopefully big crowds show up for their shows this spring & summer! Stay tuned for more on Monkey's Uncle as it comes in!

The other new Kewadin Casino concerts at The Rapids Lounge are for local hard rock quintet Swayze Train, who have added an additional two weekends onto their 2012 concert schedule for Kewadin's bar & concert spot! The local supergroup will return to The Rapids Lounge on May 11th & 12th and June 13th & 14th to deliver their trademark sets of proficient hard rock covers, and you guys won't wanna miss them! Like with the Monkey's Uncle shows, there's no cover charge, likely 10:00 PM start times, and 21+ age limits for these four new concerts, similarly to Swayze Train's shows there this coming weekend & next month. Though neither band has confirmed the shows on their respective pages yet, check the above links for all current details! I wish Swayze Train would post some media online, but I know from what I've heard that they're very talented and will definitely rock this year, so don't miss them at The Rapids Lounge over the first half of 2012! As always, stay tuned for much more from Swayze Train as I hear it!

Thirdly today, let's stay in the vein of Kewadin Casino concerts with another new video from the Bret Michaels concert on Tuesday, but this time, it's from the Poison frontman's official YouTube channel! Just 77 seconds long, the video is of scattered footage from behind the stage showing an enthusiastic crowd and Bret moving and grooving (along with a Bret Michaels nutcracker?!) set to his solo song "Human Zoo", but I have to say, I'm underwhelmed by the video. Besides it's length, I wish they could have left the concert audio in, or at least synched it with "Human Zoo" if it was played at the show, but there's still some nice footage from the concert. Check out this new Bret Michaels video from his show on Tuesday below!

Finally for Kewadin-related posts, some new photos from recent Kewadin Casino concert meet & greets are now online! I wish these were better advertised online, as I'd plug them on the SMS in advance if they'd actually advertise them wider, but hey, there's some nice photos to check out! Among other newer Kewadin photos, albums of meet & greet photos with Joan Jett & Whitesnake frontman David Coverdale are now online to check out, so click the artist names above to see the posted photos! Nice overall, and everyone seems happy in the photos that are on Kewadin's website, but hopefully these get better advertising in the future. Stay tuned for more from Kewadin Casino metal & hard rock concerts as the year rolls on, including if Bret Michaels had a meet & greet or not last month!

And finally, here's four local metal/hard rock artists looking for musicians towards new local projects, and these are in alphabetical order by the name of the artist inquiring on the Musicians Wanted Facebook group, so click here for details if any of these bands interest you. Apologies for the lateness, but hopefully the word gets out, so read on for details!:

Half Past guitarist Alain Fletcher is looking to join or fill in with a local hard rock or metal band on guitar, and is open to both covers & originals. No word on how this may impact Half Past, but if you'd like to enlist Al for your project, click here to shoot him a message! He'd sure be an asset!
Blackberrys drummer Frank Cuglietta is looking for musicians to complete a new classic hard rock project that would cover bands like Y&T and Whitesnake. There's visible interest, but if you want to audition or inquire about further details, contact Frank at this location!
Blackwater bassist James Watterworth is looking to form a new experimental metal band as a singer. Honestly, his description of his singing style and what he's looking for in musicians is so hard to sum up that I can't do it justice, but click here and scroll to his post on December 6th to check it out. If you're interested, visit this link to inquire about the band!
Local metal multi-instrumentalist Mitch Sirie (The Bear Hunters/Borderline Divine/April Eyes) is staying busy with yet another project, this time a progressive death metal project that would cover bands like Dream Theater, Opeth, and Mastodon. Specifically, he wants a drummer, but I don't know who else (if anyone) is connected with this project. Click here to contact Mitch if you're interested in trying out!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for our next "Where Are The New Albums?" post tomorrow, and for much more news in the coming days! Thanks everyone!