A New Battle Of The Bands, Plus New Videos!!

Before we begin profiling the weekend's metal/hard rock shows in the area, we have some big news to tackle today, including new song uploads, new live clips from a recent band debut, and leading off, the return of a popular local concert format, so read on below for what you should know!

Sault Ontario is getting another battle of the bands next month, with the winner getting a guaranteed opening slot for Bam Margera's Fuckface Unstoppable at The Canadian Nightclub on December 14th! A firm date has yet to be pinned down (likely during the first two weeks of November), but the battle will also take place at The Canadian, likely making it the first hard rock concert to happen there since last month's flooding. Fittingly named "Viva La Battle", it will be held in a similar format to last June's Battle for the Blood (also promoted by J.D. Pearce), where Winkstinger defeated the now-inactive For All That Is Lost, Changing Waves, and Valentine's Day Massacre to earn the right to open for 3 Inches of Blood at The Rosie last July. Also like last year, a fan vote (with paper ballots obtained at the door) will determine the winner rather than a judges panel, and there are no announced prizes for runner-up bands. Details for admission and such will likely come when the show gets a firm date, but applications for competing bands are now open, so just comment on the Facebook event page's wall if you want to join the battle!

Three bands are now confirmed for Viva La Battle, and they include two of the finalists from April's Rockstar Bar Battle of the Bands, including winners The Suicide Kings and fellow competitors The Bear Hunters! For The Suicide Kings, this will be their first announced show since August, while The Bear Hunters will be playing their first battle as a quartet after rhythm guitarist Josh Stephney's move out of town. Will The Suicide Kings defend their battle crown next month? Can The Bear Hunters continue their steady battle improvement sans Josh, and can Mitch Sirie deftly handle his roles in both bands again on the same night? We'll find out next month! The other confirmed band is North West, a new band from local solo musician Greg Callaghan. I know absolutely nothing else on them as of this writing (no known online pages yet either), but Greg has battle experience as a bassist in Terminal, including a run at the Skid Row Battle in 2009, so at least this won't be uncharted waters for him. If I hear more on North West, I'll let you guys know! Note that Destroilet & Jack Spades won't be competing, as they've already been named as openers for the concert.

At least one more band is being sought (Redundant frontman Justin Langlois had shown interest), but I don't know what the cutoff is for the amount of bands, how long setlists will be, or if any out-of-competition bands will be playing next month (for reference, last year saw 4 bands play for 30 minutes each, with T-Rex Manning playing separately.) There's a lot of details to fill in (not to mention, a final date), but battles of the bands are always a fun time, so stay tuned for continued updates, and if you're in a band that wants to open for Bam Margera, APPLY AT THE ABOVE LINKS!

We'll close this post with new YouTube uploads, starting with new footage of local classic/power metal quartet The Hydra's Teeth debut show at The Algonquin Pub from last month! Uploaded to frontman Brendan Christie's YouTube channel yesterday, these are of the guys playing their original songs "Live By The Axe" and (as embedded below) "In The Dead Of Night", as filmed by a concert attendee. The angle's slanted, but it's nice and close to the action, and it catches this promising newer band on some solid quality original songs (I'm told they're working on a lot more), though Brendan's vocals do come through very quietly on both clips. Very solid videos overall, and a nice sampler for until they play their next concert, so check out "In The Dead Of Night" below, and more at the above links!



Finally, here's notes on a couple of newer uploads from local goregrind/death metal label Blood Shed Productions' YouTube channel! One is apparently the last song from the now-defunct Tomgrindy, but I won't embed it or directly link to it here because it's a "diss track" relating to a band member and his apparent reasons for not being involved with the project anymore. I don't want to bring more attention to any issues than what is already online, out of respect to both sides, but if you want to seek it out, that's your call (musically, it's mostly spoken word over backing music & effects, with little grind.) Embedded below though is one of Crucify The Whore's songs from their "Grindshed" split demo with Tomgrindy, though I've embedded just the audio (and won't post the title) due to potentially offensive content. Even still, it's just 17 seconds long, and it mostly comprises of guitar riffing, programmed drums, and assorted vocal effects, so while it has some variance, it's too short to amount to a lot. Check out that song below, and hear more above!



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