Sunday, May 15, 2011

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 The lineup on the band's MySpace page is, as best as I can tell, outdated (so guitarists Brandon Mason & Isaac Suggitt appear to be out,) and they are looking for band members aged 14-17 to fill out their lineup, which would include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!

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