Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile: Life In Shadow

It's now time for our last monthly feature post of October 2013, as it's time for our latest Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile! As always, this series looks at a metal/hard rock band that, though never based out of the region, features at least one Saultite/regional resident in any of their lineups. These bands deserve some local props as a result, so why not profile them and their history, material, and successes? This month's profiled band is our first featuring a Sault Michigan-area alum since last year (coincidentally, it's the same Saultite in both bands), so read on below to get caught up on this earlier band of his! (Updated on November 27th, 2014)
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Life In Shadow (Montgomery/Bolingbrook, Illinois)

Lineup: (Saultites in RED; members not in their last lineup in italics. This lineup is incomplete, mainly concerning ex-members' full names, though some older members may also be missing. If you can help fill in any blanks, e-mail me at robertfigures@outlook.com)

Mark Ebbers, vocals/guitar
Scott Mills, vocals/guitar/bass
Devon Kizer, guitar

Brian Smidt, vocals
"S810", guitar
Derrick "Rev. Dirtbag" ?????, guitar
Chris "Gorespawn" Wirstrom, bass
Mark Jenkins, bass/backing vocals
Tony Spillman Jr., bass/backing vocals
Martin ????, drums
Brad Herwy, drums
Josh Abbott, drums
Sean ?????, drums 
Paul Johnsen, drums/guitar
Paul Wood, ?????
Tony Lovan, ?????

Official Facebook page: http://facebook.com/pages/life-in-shadow/224110734271095

Official MySpace page: http://www.myspace.com/lifeinshadow
Official MySpace page (original): http://www.myspace.com/lifeinshadoworiginal
Official Reverbnation page: http://www.reverbnation.com/lifeinshadow

Local Info:  Life In Shadow's only verifiable Saultite member was founding singer/guitarist Scott Mills (no relation to the Mills brothers from Life's Eclipse), who lived in Sault Michigan in the 1990s and (I believe) was in at least one local band then! He also has family in the area still, but he's been based out of Illinois in recent years, where he currently plays in Bury Your Demons, along with past work with bands like SkankBlack, so if you're in the Montgomery/Chicago area, you're bound to hear of Scott in their music scene at some point! 

Band Bio: Originally known as Affliction, Life In Shadow were a long running death metal band in the Montgomery, Illinois area from 2003-2012. Peaking in the mid-late 2000s, Life In Shadow released two demo EPs during their heyday, along with playing numerous concerts around the midwestern United States, and gaining solid press coverage on MetalUnderground.com at that time. Surviving information on Life In Shadow isn't in as plentiful supply as expected, but activity died down in the early 2010s, and after the return of singer/guitarist Mark Ebbers in April 2012 & a hyped drummer search, no updates would follow, and they're presumably now inactive. Life In Shadow proved to be a brutal and entertaining band during their run, and their studio tracks and live videos showcase songwriting maturity, ample aggression, and a good chemistry! Mark Ebbers' vocals were really solid and clear for death growling, Scott Mills was a talented lead guitarist throughout, and their various lineups were well chosen!

Maybe not as technical as some other contemporary death metal bands, but they had a nice melodic streak and enough brutality to go around, and it is disappointing that they slowly faded out in recent years, but hopefully their main members stay active in music! The above links have solid samples of their studio output, and as for videos, there's a good amount of concert footage on YouTube at this link and this link, so click through each to give their late 2000s concerts a look, and here's one of their better videos with 10 minutes of original set-closing action at a December 2008 show!

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I hope you guys liked this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile! Next month, we'll again not profile a new band in this series so I can devote November once again to updating past profiles in this series to reflect new updates, lineup changes, band breakups and reunions, photo restorations, typo/error fixes, and other changes & new stuff where applicable. There's a lot of ground to cover (especially when we don't touch on these bands nearly as much as full local projects), but I hope to have everything public, restored, and up to date by November 26th, so watch out for all of that next month, and stay tuned for my review of TONIGHT'S Halloween Party at The Roosevelt Hotel tomorrow! Thanks everyone!

LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS (The Darwin Project), A New Local Band, And More From Sault Michigan!!

The marathon of news continues today into it's latter stages, as we give you some news from across the river! Today, we focus on Sault Michigan, including the latest news from Beyond The Surface & Life's Eclipse, an intriguing piece of news from Werehold Records, and LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, but first, here's a new local band! (UPDATED: Monday, 8:32 PM)

The new band I've discovered is Chained Memories, a new young metal band from nearby Kincheloe, Michigan! Though they started their MySpace page in December 2009, I've only seen them really active in the past few weeks, so they really flew under the radar in the past year and a half. As far as I can tell, the only current member of the band is former Silent Despair drummer Mike Rynberg, though their Facebook page also credits Outshined frontman Jacob Zeeryp as a band member with an unknown role. The lineup on the band's MySpace page is, as best as I can tell, outdated (so guitarists Brandon Mason & Isaac Suggitt appear to be out,) and they are looking for band members aged 14-17 to fill out their lineup, which would include a keyboard player! Aside from a logo and some hints towards t-shirt designs, there's not a lot to say yet, but hopefully Chained Memories succeeds where Silent Despair failed! Check the above links for more, as well as their Reverbnation page, and I will keep you posted!

Now for those LOCAL CONCERT ALERTS, as a prominent Northern Michigan band is returning to Sault Michigan in July! Cheboygan hard rock quartet The Darwin Project will make their first announced local stops of the summer when they hit The Corner Pub Bar & Grill on July 8th and 9th for a weekend set of entertaining music! The news about these new local shows was quietly posted on the band's Facebook page on Thursday thanks to two new Facebook event pages, this one for the Friday show, and this one for the Saturday concert. Both shows have 9:30 PM start times, you must be 21 to attend on either night, and there's no announced cover charge. Check the above links for more details! It's always good to see The Darwin Project out and about in Sault Michigan, and their energetic take on radio hard rock should go over well, as it always seems to! Stay tuned for more updates on The Darwin Project's next local stops as I hear them!

Now for some stories related to the recently relaunched Eckerman metal quartet Life's Eclipse, starting with the posting of demos from their upcoming album "Shadow Over Superior"! On Wednesday, the band posted a video onto their record label Werehold Records' YouTube channel that features 30 second samples of every song on the "Shadow Over Superior" album! The tracklisting hasn't changed from what was on their MySpace page, so head there for title previews if you don't pay attention to the screen in audio-based videos like this. 30 seconds is very little to go on to give definitive thoughts to the songs on the album, but these instrumental samples all sound promising, and this should be a quality album when it comes out! Of course, one of the songs (the instrumental "Not Dead, But Dreaming") is posted on their MySpace, so if you want a full taste, check that very cool song out! Now though, give a listen to samples from the whole album, which I'm eager to hear, how about you guys?



Speaking of Werehold Records-related topics, Life's Eclipse frontman/Werehold Records head Jason Mills has a big plan in mind involving an album featuring local bands, so here's what you should know! He's hoping to make up a compilation record featuring local bands to help give them exposure, presumably through release through Werehold Records in the coming months. He's aiming to have bands who want in on the CD to contribute up to two songs for inclusion on the record, which would be professionally pressed and be available to sell at shows and on band pages. Nothing he said to me implied a restriction for which side of the border your band lives on, or if you had to be connected to Werehold Records already to get in on this. I've heard similar rumblings on this side that I won't go into without public word, but Jason's idea sounds very intriguing! Never hurts to get some well needed exposure, and why not do it with other bands who also want the same thing? If this flies, this could be to the benefit of a lot of bands, so definitely shoot Jason a message at werehold@hotmail.com if you or your band would be interested in being on this compilation record!

And finally, here's the latest news on young Pickford hard rockers Beyond The Surface! Firstly, the band appears to have quietly parted ways with guitarist Blake Mastaw, just two months after his addition to the band. No statement has been made as to his exit, but he was removed from the Beyond the Surface's lineup on their Facebook page, reducing them (at least for now) to a three-piece band. I know that when Blake joined, there was a visible uproar from some fans, but I wonder what happened so soon for him to leave? Well, best of luck to him, and of course, if you're a Pickford-area guitarist and want to try out, give the band a shout, you never know! Also, in some of the band's latest updates, they announced that they are looking to play some dates soon, and were open for suggestions. That, and they're apparently playing a set on Tuesday night at the Pickford High School gym, but without a lot of details, I don't know enough to really "call" it on here. Still, best of luck to them, and they are a promising young band! Check the above links for more!

That's all for now, but stay tuned for more news and notes tomorrow, including (maybe) a book review? Keep your eyes peeled to the SMS! Thanks everyone!