New Sault Michigan Video Uploads, Including New Werehold Records Tracks!!

To keep news from falling too behind given some recent delays, I've got another new post for today, but of course, check out some big concert updates and band dissolutions/inactivity descents in the post below this one! Tonight's post is another all-Sault Michigan area installment, mostly concerning new song postings from a local label, but at the end, we have a live hair metal cover from a recent community event across the river, so read on below for what you need to know! We'll start with the latest from prolific Eckerman label/studio Werehold Records, as owner/performer Jason Mills has uploaded a handful of new songs from three Werehold-signed bands onto their YouTube channel on Saturday as part of what's being called "spring cleaning", and these constitute the first YouTube uploads of new songs from the label in almost a year! Now, with no Friday the 13th coming until September to tie in an upload spree with, it's great to see some songs come before that, so here's what got posted this weekend!

Two of the songs come from (arguably) the label's flagship band, local metal quartet Life's Eclipse, as the tracks "Aphelion" & "Welcome To The Vortex" were uploaded on Saturday! Both were written circa 1996 or 1997, and are/will be included on the band's album "The Chemicals To Make You A Better Person", though note that they were uploaded as instrumental tracks. Each has a lot of melodic groove metal intensity and catchy riffing, though "Welcome To The Vortex" (the album's opener) is a fast and short number, while "Aphelion" is slower but longer. As usual, I'm impressed the quality and talent on both tracks, and I'd love to see Life's Eclipse expand further locally if possible! Also, as a side note, an aphelion is the point in the Earth's orbit when it's furthest from the Sun, which is the opposite of a perihelion (which Sault Ontario progressive death metal notables Gates of Winter are calling their long awaited new EP.) It's definitely a coincidence, but I thought it was worth mentioning! As it's the longer of the two, I've embedded "Aphelion" below, so give it a listen, and keep an eye out for more Life's Eclipse updates!



Also among the new videos are samples of two new songs from Strongs hard rock quintet Moss (featuring Jason & David Mills from Life's Eclipse), as uploaded in one video on Saturday! Neither are titled yet, but they're the first audio clips posted featuring returning bassist Terry Carrick, and neither clip is longer than a minute. The first one has a better groove and aggression than the second one, which seems to be a bit more dramatic, but each clip is heavy and well played, and like the video says, hopefully something will get finished before the guys are in nursing homes! Check out both clips below!



The other new Werehold upload is Swampghas guitarist J.R. Johnson's East Branch solo project's demo "Paradox Confliction", which Jason (also of Swampghas) said was the first East Branch song he had heard. Like the other new videos, it's instrumental, but it's a much slower and more deliberately paced track than Swampghas are known for, though it's unquestionably heavy! I think it'd get repetitive if any longer, but it's solid, so give East Branch's new demo a listen below as well!

Finally for today, this live performance video comes from the Music In The Park event in Brimley, Michigan last Thursday (the Fourth of July), which featured numerous regional musical performers, with sound provided by Half A Man frontman Erik Rintamaki's new live sound company/recording studio Superior Sound Company. Most (if not all) of the performers were acoustic, so this didn't seem ripe for metal performances, but looks can be deceiving, as this video (one of 9 uploaded to Erik's YouTube channel on Friday) features musicians Steve & Skip (identities not clearer beyond that) covering Tesla's version of "Signs" at the event! It's definitely the Tesla version, not the original by The Five Man Electrical Band, as the vocal style definitely recalls the hair metal cover. It's well done and has a good harshness to it while retaining the unplugged qualities, and I like the colour filter that Erik put on the video, where it's black and white except for red things (a'la the girl's coat in Schindler's List.)

Note that the second song in the video is (I think) an original with a lot of lyrics about putting jeans on, which is alright for what it is, but the lyrics can get a bit repetitive. Check out that and Steve & Skip's cover of "Signs" below, don't miss Tesla themselves when they return to the Soo on July 27th, and stay tuned in case I'm missing any more heavier covers from Brimley last week!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for more Sault Ontario news shortly, plus this month's Defunct Local Band Profile on Sneaky Pete! Thanks everyone!