Pillory - "Cringe At The Cross" EP Review!!

With news coming slowly right now, it's a great time to post our 55th monthly CD review at the SMS (and first of 2014), as we're looking at local thrash metal band Pillory's debut demo EP "Cringe At The Cross" today! Independently released on December 19th in honour of the one year anniversary of founding guitarist Andres Duchesne's passing, the disc was recorded locally last year at Shez Studios, with production by Pillory and their Issues bandmate Chris "Mullet Studborne" Shelbourne. "Cringe At The Cross" features founding & current Pillory members Robert Sartini on vocals, guitar, and bass, and Bret Shuttleworth on drums, with no other past or present band members featured. Copies of Pillory's EP can be bought for $5 via band members or presumably at their upcoming concerts, and you can also stream the entire disc for free at Robert's personal YouTube channel (each song title is linked below to it's YouTube version), but support the band by buying it Featuring 31 minutes of music in just 5 songs, let's begin the review with the first song!

The EP begins with "Fatal Woods", an almost 8 minute long track that opens and closes with quotes from the movie "Friday The 13th" before actually beginning with a slower building intro with nice melodic guitar and solid drumming for two minutes. The song unleashes into thrash metal fury with very cool guitar soloing from Robert, and it might be worth noting that compared to their only full concert to date (in November 2012), Robert's vocals are much harsher, aggressive, and higher pitched, perhaps taking influence from Chuck Schuldiner, or his other band Crimson Crusade? The instrumentation on this song is well done and melodic while retaining a metal bite, and despite the length, it never feels like it's dragging on for too long, but something doesn't feel full about the sound when there's no vocals, almost as if a guitar track was left out. Very brutal and well performed beginning to this EP though, and Pillory fans should be right at home!

Second is "No One Answers", which leads off instantly into a fast thrash pace with solid bass and great drumming from Bret, though it did seem to take forever to get into the first verse of lyrics. I love the aggression and galloping guitar riffs, and the vocals are constant from "Fatal Woods", but the softer stretch 3:30 in (including the solo) feels like it came from a different song, but it ends strongly! I would like to hear Robert contribute more vocals, but this continues with the speed metal success of the first song! Next is the EP's title track "Cringe At The Cross", which opens softly like on "Fatal Woods", but benefits from awesome drumming from Bret and a shorter length, but again, the vocals take too long to be introduced. A bit slower when it's fully going, there's still a lot of very nice instrumental work, and Bret really shines, but it could stand to be a bit more melodic, and once the verses and choruses come in, there's not a lot of variance, but there's plenty of aggressive action to go around!

Despite being over 5 minutes long, the next song "Onward To Death" is the shortest track on the EP, and by far the most brutal and straightforward, with well used vocals, very nice guitar riffing, and a full catchiness to everything that works to the band and song's advantage! A surefire mosh pit inciter, Robert and Bret are firing on all cylinders, with only the guitar solo underwhelming somewhat based on how it flows with the rest of the song. The ending is slightly abrupt too, but I really enjoyed the intense metal edge to "Onward To Death", and it shows the guys' strengths well! "Cringe At The Cross" closes with "Shattered By War", a 7 minute original that fits well with it's predecessor tracks! Another long melodic instrumental intro kicks this one off, and while it shares a lot of similarities with songs like "No One Answers" in structure for the first half, it seems to end after 4 1/2 minutes and then restart as a mellower instrumental ballad of sorts that builds back into metal territory to close the EP on a high note. Another very solid track, but it really feels like two joined together (albeit well done for each half.)
 

So, what were my final thoughts on Pillory's debut demo EP? It's a very nice and brutal sampling of their early original material, and for a city that hasn't had a lot of straight thrash bands in recent years, Pillory fill that void well! Though only half of Pillory's lineup features on the disc, it's hard to tell, with Robert Sartini proving up to the task on guitar & bass, and Bret Shuttleworth continues his promise as a rising drum talent to watch! Robert's aggressive Death-esque vocals are also nice to hear, but at times, they did seem strained and rough, and with the exception of "Onward To Death", the verses seemed to come too late and run too quick. The production was really solid too, but at times, there were emptier patches, and a couple songs seemed too similar to each other. I was also curious to hear some of their newer tracks, or contributions from newer members, but much of the aims of "Cringe at the Cross" were to honour the memory of Andres Duchesne and the songs he wrote and played with Pillory, and in that regard, I can see why some decisions were made.

Overall though, Pillory's EP is a well made, very brutal, and nicely performed first disc from this promising young band, and I'm very curious to hear where Robert, Bret, Josh, and Tyler go in 2014! Pick it up A.S.A.P. at their concerts and by messaging band members! Our next CD review is to be determined, and though I'm leaning towards The Hiroshima Mutant Mindframe's new digital album, Telephone & Address' "Rotten EP" is possible if I get a copy. Either way, stay tuned for updates soon on that front, and for more news soon! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Heavy Winter), Pillory EP Release Updates, And More!!

As promised, we have a news post today as well, and it mostly focuses on a planned EP release TOMORROW, but we also have related notes on a recent collaborator of theirs, and first, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT! Check it all out below, and give a look at our post from this morning for last month's poll results and info on our newest poll on your favourite new local metal/hard rock bands of 2013!

Local/Toronto hardcore punk trio RedD Monkey will return home for the first time since August when they headline Heavy Winter, a Boxing Day concert at The Roosevelt Hotel on Thursday, December 26th! Their first appearance at The Rosie in well over a year, it'll be great to have this talented and creative band back up north to rock the Soo with their cello-infused originals! They'll be joined on Boxing Day by local power/classic metal quartet The Hydra's Teeth in just their second live concert appearance & their first ever stop at The Rosie, prominent local hard rock quartet The Suicide Kings in their first Rosie appearance since May, and local punk/metal quartet T-Rex Manning (in just their second concert in the last 7 months)! Nice selection of bands we haven't seen as much of lately, and there's a little something for most metal tastes, so certainly keep it in mind for Boxing Day! Promoter J.D. Pearce is seeking more bands, so if you're interested in playing at Heavy Winter, message him at this link.

Note as well that this is the ninth Thursday night concert at The Rosie that J.D. has promoted (and first in almost 5 months), so fans of the former Rosie metal nights may want to take note of that connection! Heavy Winter has a $5 cover charge, 19+ age limit, and 10:00 PM start time, and for more details, visit the official Facebook event page! The holiday season is usually very good for metal/hard rock shows, and this will be no exception, so stay tuned as more bands get added to Heavy Winter!

Next up, here's the latest on local thrash band Pillory's upcoming demo EP release and plans! TOMORROW'S planned release date for "Cringe at the Cross" is still a go, and to that effect, the band has released a photo showing a bunch of physical copies! This is roughly the official artwork (same as on the streaming YouTube copies), so plans for an out of town-commissioned cover must not have went through. According to recent indications, the EP will be on sale directly through Pillory via their Facebook page or through individual band members (likely for $5), so if you want one of the first copies, message the guys starting on Thursday! No word on if it will be sold on a digital format yet, and as for in-concert availability, posts from Sabrina Strange Productions have been fairly exciting! The former Chronic Demonic singer has begun collaborating with Pillory in the past week, and according to her production company's Facebook page, she's helping design t-shirts for the band, she hinted at a DVD and band stickers, and she also indicated that Pillory hope to be on 2014 concerts put on by Blood Shed Productions!

It's nice to hear about plans ramping up from Pillory (especially having only played 1 and a half concerts since their inception), and hopefully tomorrow's release is a great to way to honour the memory of founding guitarist Andres Duchesne one year after we lost him! In case there's nothing new to report on Thursday in terms of the release, I'll confirm right now that if it's not delayed, "Cringe at the Cross" will be our first CD review of 2014! We have this month still dedicated to The Strange Coyotes' digital album, hence why they're next month, but it should be very interesting, so watch out for our review of Pillory's EP next month! Lastly for Pillory updates, Sabrina also posted this jam session video onto her production company's Facebook page last week of members Robert Sartini & Bret Shuttleworth playing their song "Dethrone the Dictator", though it's instrumental, in black and white, only 51 seconds long, and doesn't feature Josh Amendola or Tyler St. Amour. It's still a solid quality video with the guys sounding great, so check it out below!



Finally for today, here's the latest relating to the aforementioned Sabrina "Strange" Lavoie! Since leaving Project Legion, we haven't heard a whole lot for firm musical plans from her, but she's recently been working on drumming under the tutelage of Pillory as a way to be more diverse for future band opportunities, with videos of her playing with Robert Sartini now on Facebook themselves! Joining a well done and short metal cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic" with her on vocals and guitar, the new drum videos are of her and Robert covering Avenged Sevenfold's "Unholy Confessions" and a longer clip embedded below! There's work to be done, but she's showing positive signs, and hopefully she keeps at it in the coming months, so check out her drumming work below, and stay tuned soon for another video she uploaded of Robert playing a solo cover!



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

Pillory CD Updates, New Solo Covers, And Much More!!

On this cold Tuesday morning, we're back with some more news and notes, so what's on tap? More updates to our Battle of the Bands Profiles, some assorted shorter topics, and new cover videos, but first, here's the latest on a long awaited upcoming album release!

Sault Ontario thrash quartet Pillory have announced that their first demo CD "Cringe at the Cross" will be released on Thursday, December 19th! As announced on their Facebook page yesterday, the date is to honour the one year anniversary of founding guitarist Andres Duchesne's sudden passing last year, and to go along with that, the half hour disc will only feature the five songs that Pillory wrote with him ("Onward to Death", "Fatal Woods", "Shattered by War", "No One Answers", and "Cringe at the Cross"), with their newest song "Dethrone the Dictator" not to be included. The CD will only feature singer/guitarist Robert Sartini & drummer Bret Shuttleworth, with Robert handling bass & Andres' parts, so current members Josh Amendola & Tyler St. Amour won't be featured (nor will past bassists Jonathan Tiberi & Cole Royal.) "Cringe at the Cross" was independently recorded at Shez Studios, and was mixed & produced by Pillory and producer Chris Shelbourne (a.k.a. Rob & Bret's Issues bandmate Mullet Studborne.)

Note that the cover art (if any), price, and release method haven't been released yet, but we'll keep you guys posted if/when we hear anything! It'd be nice to see the "Cringe at the Cross" release tied in with a concert (Pillory have only played one full concert since debuting, and that was a year ago), but it's nice to see Pillory approaching a release of their first recorded work, and I'm very curious to hear it next month! Stay tuned for updates, and I know Andres would be proud!

Next up, here's the latest solo cover videos from Ashes to Dust guitarist Alex Hemy! Posted to his YouTube channel just recently, these return to Alex's recent trend of more general covers, and they're covers of Nickelback's "Far Away" and (as embedded below) John Mayer's "Good Love Is On The Way". The former is acoustic and doesn't strike me as a great fit for his higher vocal range, but the John Mayer song (which I'm not familiar with) works really well and flows nicely all around! Ashes To Dust's absence from public updates is now in it's fifth month, but at least Alex is staying busy, so check out his newest covers below and at the above links!



Also today, here's three assorted shorter news stories and notes from the last while, and conveniently, all tie into local goregrind label Blood Shed Productions! As usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

• Strange Coyotes guitarist (and Blood Shed solo artist) Chase Wigmore makes a brief appearance in the new independent documentary film "What Is Canadian Music?", where filmmaker Kevin Dorin asks him (among others) questions on what he thinks Canadian music is, and how to improve the national scene so Canadian music is heard more. Chase gives good answers, and plays an original song afterwards, so check out his part of the movie at this link! (He's on at 38:40)
• In a post on their Facebook page on Friday, Malignant Neoplasm mainman Ringsnaps Gibson called the cybergrind project "just a tumbleweed blowing in the wind", and admitted that it's "a dying project". That's not to say that Malignant Neoplasm will end, but since the release of the split demo they're on, they've received little attention, and I imagine the amount of programming on their songs would hurt chances for live gigs. If I hear anything final regarding their active status, I'll have it here!
• This is admittedly not a "news story", but I finally was able to confirm through a Facebook conversation earlier this month that Ringsnaps Gibson's first name is Tyler, and though he doesn't use his real first name in current music projects, he is the same Tyler Gibson who led the short lived 2011 comedy metal band T.E.N. (as heard here.) I think he's grown as a musician since (even if T.E.N. aren't as polarizing), but it's good to connect two dots in this case!

Finally for today, here's some more recent updates to our Battle of the Bands Rewind Profiles to get them more accurate & current! I added new Jack Spades guitarist Jesse Cook's role in said band to the sections on later bands featuring performers on the Skid Row, YMCA, and Battle For The Blood profiles, as he played in each with Sikamikanico, Operation: Killdozer, and Winkstinger respectively (in the case of the former, I replaced the recently inactive Cowboys & Indians with Jack Spades in that section.) Also with the Battle For The Blood profile, I updated post-battle references to competitors Winkstinger (given their recent inactivity) and The Valentine's Day Massacre (as they broke up and have been succeeded by Saints & Serpents.) Moving to our profile of the Sault College Battle, I replaced the now inactive Mike Haggith & The Din and The Vig with ex-Blackwater bassist James Watterwoth's new band The Strange Coyotes and ex-Sykotyk Rampage bassist Brian Cattapan's new band Aggressive Acoustic in the section on performers' newer bands. Stay tuned for more updates soon!

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

New Sault Michigan Videos, And Lots Of Recent Sault Ontario News Items!!

Before we get to the news, I just wanted to apologize for a possible missed concert for promotion on here, as local classic/hard rock cover band Griphook (who we recently began formally covering on here) were listed as playing at The Nicolet Tavern last night on SooToday's Don't Say There's Nothing To Do In The Soo List (link here.) However, neither Griphook's Facebook page nor members' personal pages said anything about a show at the Nic last night, so I can't definitively say if that show went on. If it did, my profuse apologies for missing it, but I have no clear proof that it happened.

Now, this post largely clears out our cache of unposted news items on the site, and it's half divided between videos from the Sault Michigan area, and a bunch of recent shorter stories from Sault Ontario! We'll start with this somewhat hard to describe promo video from local hard rock/metal band The Highest of Fives (featuring 415E, RamWagon, and Free Refill alumni), which was uploaded to guitarist Devin Anderson's YouTube channel on Sunday. According to the description, the video is a preview of an upcoming "TV show" that The Highest of Fives are making with local "Twitter personality" Crusty Puck, though I don't know much about him. The video features assorted out of context clips set to music (presumably a Highest of Fives song), though everything seems to be parts of sketches rather than performances, and I don't think the full band features even in an acting role. I wouldn't write off the video too fast, as the band's past preview clips for their upcoming album "Bang!" have amusing moments and some inspiration, so if this takes off (presumably as a web series), there might be value to it! Give the preview video a look below!



Also in new videos, remember on Monday when we covered that Tesla cover from the Music In The Park event in Brimley on July 4th? Well, there's one more acoustic hair metal cover from the event that sound engineer/Half A Man frontman Erik Rintamaki filmed and uploaded to his YouTube channel last week, and it's of The Mills Family (identities not clear beyond the family connection) covering Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead Or Alive" on the 4th! One of two videos of this quartet that Erik shot (joining a black & white cover of Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville"), it's well performed, albeit quainter sounding than the original, and the singer handles the track nicely! Bon Jovi fans should like the cover, so give it a look below!



Finally for today, here's six assorted shorter stories from Sault Ontario in the past little while, and as usual, these are in alphabetical order by artist name:

• In a somewhat odd replacement for the third annual Sewer Swampstravaganza on August 10th, local folk artist Guy Smith has replaced young local hard rock quartet Ashes To Dust as the show's opening band, as per promoters on the Facebook event page on Thursday. A reason for the switch was not announced, but hopefully nothing bad happened in the Ashes To Dust camp! Guy's a talented musician and poet, though definitely an outlier for this type of show, but give his work a listen above and see what you think!
• Local musician Chris Raginskis is again exploring the possibility of launching a local band, this time eyeing a Christian hard rock band that would cover artists like Chevelle and Switchfoot. Christian rock bands are definitely more common in Sault Michigan, but this one sounds like it'd be heavier if it took off (similarly to Outshined), so if you're interested in being a part, message Chris at this link or at his Musicians Wanted Facebook group post on June 5th!
• Late & Loud successors The Hydra's Teeth announced the addition of ex-Sativa Rose/Winkstinger guitarist Anthony Orazietti to their lineup on their Facebook page yesterday, replacing the already departed Talon Risto. Anthony proved to be a quality addition in his last two bands, so hopefully this new gig works out, and stay tuned for more as we hear it!
• Also from the Musicians Wanted group, new local musician Jason Hayward is looking to play some "angst driven rock covers" in a local band (for the record, he plays bass and can sing.) If you're interested in jamming with him, message Jason at this link or via his post from last week at the above link!
• Local thrash band Pillory are still at work on their debut EP "Cringe At The Cross", with bass and drum tracks complete, and guitar and vocal tracks now in the process of being finished, as per posts on their Facebook page this month. A return to the stage would help their prominence and exposure for the EP release, but I don't think they've found a replacement for the late Andres Duchesne yet. Hopefully things are coming along well for them, and stay tuned for updates!
• Newer local classic/hard rock quintet The Thrill Junkies have added Redundant frontman Justin Langlois to their lineup as their new bassist, replacing Jamie Cameron. With no online pages yet, my source is drummer Scott McLurg's personal Facebook page. Barring an interim announcement, their new lineup will debut at the Rock N' Roar festival in Spanish next month, so keep it in mind, and hopefully Justin proves to be a solid addition in this new band!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes in the coming week, especially as we approach Rotaryfest weekend! Thanks everyone!