Merry Christmas From The Sault Metal Scene!!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope you guys got lots of presents and are enjoying the holiday season, and as  one last present for you guys, we have a very seasonal post today full of Christmas surprises and holiday-referencing videos from recent years, including info on a Christmas album you guys should get, a Christmas-draped performance from a couple of years ago, and our last surprise audio uploads for the year, but first, here's this week's classic video (and our final one of 2012!)

Knowing that the last full week of 2012 would fall over Christmas, a seasonal metal video would work here if it was able to find, and we found one, as this is of defunct Sault Ontario metal quartet Fountain of Betrayal covering "The 12 Days of Christmas" at a Case's Music event on December 21st, 2008! We already uploaded one Facebook video of F.O.B.'s set that day onto our YouTube channel (a Beastie Boys cover), but this one fully embraces the Christmas spirit, with the 2008 Case's Battle of the Bands winners putting a hard rock spin on this classic carol! Now, it is differently arranged and shortened, but the members do show their talents for their young ages, including March Into Regression bassist Tyler St. Amour on bass & vocals, his brother/bandmate Travis on drums, and guitarists Chris West and Ryan (last name unknown, any help?) If anything, the shortening of the song doesn't work to it's advantage as it's too obvious for the cuts, but it's well performed, especially knowing that the members were preteens at the time! This was originally uploaded to Facebook by attendee Kelly Godson the day of the show, and you can view the original video at http://facebook.com/photo.php?v=105145970261.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All credit for this video goes to Fountain of Betrayal and Kelly, I'm just trying to share it with a deserving wider audience! For seasonal local metal, this video should work well, so check it out below, and stay tuned for news on the St. Amour brothers' next band projects when/if I hear of them!

Next up, here's our final surprise Christmas audio uploads of the year, and it's a full CD, that being defunct Sault Michigan metal band Integrated System of Machines' only album "Apocalyptic Vision"! One of the most prominent original metal acts in the area in the mid-late 2000s, I.S.O.M. independently released this album on March 6th, 2008, with it being available at the band's later concerts, as well as online through various sites for a couple years afterward. As best as I can tell, the band's lineup on this album featured Powerslug drummer Bob "Orb Hearthstone" Helsten on vocals, along with Chris Sevens on guitar, J. Rizzo on bass, former Dust N' Bones drummer Bart "Black Trab" Rennels, End of Existence/Theater of Night keyboardist Craig "Tubesock" Harrison, and Rachel Mender on operatic & backing vocals. Some of the lineup information is incomplete, but if you can fill in any blanks, let me know! Little else is publically known on the album through surviving online pages, but it's definitely out of print now, and I don't believe it's even on sale digitally on any active music websites.

NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS INTENDED!! All 10 of these songs deserve a wider audience, especially to introduce I.S.O.M. to newer fans, though partial successors End of Existence's first album does share many sound similarities. I won't individually credit every song from this album on here just to save space, but click here to see each YouTube upload, and of course, you can stream the album through I.S.O.M.'s Reverbnation page. It's a solid quality album of epic death metal, with nice heavy riffs and brutal vocal work (as alluded to in my review of this album), despite some production flaws, so check out the album's title track below, and more at the above links!

We'll close our Christmas Day post with just some light seasonal fare, starting with I.S.O.M. keyboard slayer Craig Harrison's current work, including the classical metal band Theatre of Night, who are hard at work once again on their ever-evolving debut CD "Christmas Night"! Originally released in the fall of 2010, the album has been re-released once already, and while a planned 2012 re-release with new downloadable tracks hasn't came out (from what I've seen), the best is yet to come next year, as they're overhauling the album with new arrangements and material featuring German soprano vocalist Gaby Koss! The first samples with her on vocals came out a couple weeks ago, and you can of course search the SMS using the form in the upper left for detailed coverage of their recent activity and 2013 plans. For today, enjoy the band's most recent video, which features Theater of Night's rendition of "What Child Is This?" with Gaby's very impressive singing, and keep an eye out for more big news from the Theatre of Night camp in the coming months!



Lastly, here's a video from December 27th, 2010, when three local bands descended upon Foggy Notions (now Coch's Corner) for The Nightmare After Christmas Party! Despite numerous pre-show lineup changes and a visit by the police over a noise complaint, the concert was a hit, from RedD Monkey's entertaining headlining set to the impromptu return of Reagle Beagle, but the video we're focusing on is from Frightlight, who added a belated festive spin to their set by having the members & stage decked out in Christmas attire (with a horror flair, of course!) Featuring the band's late 2010-early 2011 lineup (singer Johnny Pints, guitarist Rick Styles, bassist Eddie Fright, and ex-drummer Jeff "The Count" De Rose), this video is of their song "C.H.U.D.", which definitely isn't seasonal, but it's a cool song all the while! Apologies for the quality, I believe I used a borrowed camera that night. Quite possibly the last Christmas themed concert at Foggy's before it's name & owner changes, this was a solid show from what I remember (I still have the band-autographed bloody Santa shirt), and you can catch a glimpse of what went down 2 years ago below!



Once again, merry Christmas from the SMS, and here's to an even better holiday season in 2013! We'll be back to normal news and posts tomorrow, including this month's Saultites In Out Of Town Bands Profile on The Dyadics in the next few days! (Maybe tomorrow, but it depends on personal timing.) That and more are coming though, so stay tuned!