LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (The Pixo Control), More Toystock Videos, And More!!

Before we tackle a busy weekend for hard rock concerts, here's one more news post for this Wednesday night, but be sure to check out this morning's Defunct Local Band Profile on Half Past below this post! Tonight, we have some more recent CD reviews, more videos from a recent benefit concert, and first, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for the end of the year, so here's what you need to know!

Local alternative/grunge trio The Pixo Control and post punk/garage quartet Gnaeus will return to the stage for a end-of-year show at Cafe Natura on Tuesday, December 30th! Specifically taking place in the Elgin Street whole foods restaurant & venue's basement for unannounced reasons, this will be The Pixo Control's first Cafe Natura set in over 6 months, while it will be Gnaeus' first show anywhere since August's Emergency Festival. Look for both to have some exciting newer originals as they end 2014 with a bang! This show's advertised headline act is local folk musician Chris West's Great Chamberlain solo project, while local blues rock quartet The Frasiers will reunite over four months after their announced breakup on December 30th as well, so if you've missed them, you're in luck! Promoted by Frasiers bassist Brenden Fitzgerald, this show has NO COVER CHARGE, no announced age limit, and time slots to be announced. For more details, visit the Facebook event page!

This should be an entertaining concert, especially as all but The Pixo Control haven't played a publically announced show since the summer! Keep tabs on it over the holidays for a varied mix of sounds from Lopstock and Emergency Festival acts, and as they've now hosted two distinct shows with hard rock or punk acts, we're now listing Cafe Natura in our active Sault Ontario concert venue links!

Next up, here's some more videos from last month's third annual Toystock charity concert at The Canadian Nightclub! First, Bone Yard/That's Chester drummer Ric Datson uploaded this compilation of clips from the day's acts onto his YouTube channel last week, so what can you catch in the 9 minute+ video? In order, we have The Stumpy Coldwater Trio covering The Steeldrivers' "Guitars, Whiskey, Guns, and Knives" & a song that I can't place, followed by Robert "Killabeatz" Drolet beatboxing, the arrival of Santa & Mrs. Claus, Lorrie Lynn & The Sinners playing "Swear When I Pray", The Pixo Control playing "Land of the Moles" & clips of two later originals, Thin Ice covering Jason Aldean's "The Only Way I Know", Domina covering Pat Benatar's "All Fired Up" and clips of four later covers, Mourning Wood covering Bon Jovi's "It's My Life", Mannapool playing their song "Mayday", and closing with five assorted clips of Bone Yard playing various covers, so click each band's name to see them!

Note however that Ric did not film Mike Case's Junior All Stars or Lucky 13 (at least, not in clips included below) for unannounced reasons, though we'll have more from the former in an upcoming post. Solid footage overall at varied angles, despite Ric's lack of zoom on the clips, though the filmer for his band Bone Yard's footage did go closer to the stage. I wonder if the longer footage of The Pixo Control & Domina's sets is a sign of confidence for both bands' success and talent? Though most of the footage is from each band's first song (a'la Mike Caruso's videos), Ric did a solid job getting these clips, so see them below, and stay tuned for more!



Also from Toystock, here's the last of the aforementioned Mike Caruso's videos from the event! Uploaded to the Sault Online correspondent's own YouTube channel last week along with the videos we shared on Saturday, the last three videos that Mike shot are of prog-rockers Mannapool playing their first original song (credited on their setlist as "Chaos", but that's likely not it's full name), country headliners Bone Yard covering Brantley Gilbert's "Country Must Be Country Wide", and embedded below, classic/hard rock trio Mourning Wood covering Joe Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way". Like with Mike's other videos, these have washed out colours due to the auto-brightening filter, and sometimes have quality jumps due to camera switches, but they're solid all around, and fans should enjoy these videos if you're a fan of the respective genres! Give Mourning Wood's video a look below, and see more via the above links!

Finally for today, here's some more reviews of local sludge/doom metal trio AlgomA's debut CD "Reclaimed By The Forest"! Last week, Marcos Garcia from the website Metal Temple reviewed the album, giving it an 8/10 rating ("Excellent" on their scale), calling it "a savage Sasquatch on a furious attack", even praising Mark Rand's mix of the tracks, and praised them as having "a very good future". Nice review, so give it a look at this link! The Tumblr page Doomed & Stoned also reviewed "Reclaimed By The Forest" yesterday, where they called it "well-crafted doom" and "a crushing listen" in a brief review, though they did tag it as one of their best metal albums of the year. Short but well stated, so give it a look at this location! Lastly for now, AlgomA made a cameo in MetalSucks' article on the best metal albums of the year (as chosen by various metal musicians), where Hooded Menace frontman Lasse Pyykko ranked AlgomA's CD as his 9th favourite album of 2014, joining such bands as Pallbearer and Godflesh, among others.

Solid all around, so see more of the rankings here, and stay tuned for more from AlgomA! That's all for now, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews TOMORROW! Thanks everyone!