Local Metal/Punk Video Showcase!!

In what may be our final concert preview-free news post of the month, we're covering videos from a quartet of varied local acts today, so here' what you should know from each video and band!

We'll start with a full concert video from Sault Michigan classical metal project Theatre of Night's Christmas tour finale at The Park Theater in Holland on December 23rd! A month removed from that event, the 74 minute long video was finally posted online, though unlike their prior full concert videos from their 2018 tour, this was posted to their YouTube channel rather than on Facebook. Much like the previous tour uploads, the show in Holland (40 minutes west of Grand Rapids) was filmed on a stationary camera in the audience, but it's positioned well to capture the guys in action! The setlist is identical to the prior filmed shows due to the structured conceptual nature & pre-recorded introductions, but with the benefit of YouTube links that start at a given time, you can click on these song titles to easily hear each given song: "What Child Is This", "Carol of the Bells", "The Little Drummer Boy", "Away In A Manger", "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", "Silent Night", "O Come All Ye Faithful", ...

..."O Holy Night", "Hark The Herald Angels Sing", "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", and "We Three Kings", with instrumental/aria numbers also sporadically dotted in between. If you can put up with the belated post-Christmas nature of these metallized carols, then you'll get more solid and dynamic performances from this talented quintet, and the audio and video quality holds up well for the duration! Give Theatre of Night's full Holland set a look below, and stay tuned for more from them when it rolls in, including on if they have a third Christmas tour planned for 2019!

Next up, here's the latest from local solo artist Chase Wigmore's active projects! On January 18th, Chase posted on his Facebook page to note that he'd be taking a break from regular posts to focus on his new music while also clarifying how he's dividing up his music for future social media attention. Going forward, he plans to keep his new death metal material on the new Facebook page for his new solo project Awokest, while keep his folk/experimental material on his eponymous Facebook page. If he truly intends to separate all further extreme metal work under the Awokest banner, than this is a good idea, but we won't drop Chase's solo project from our band links after this new distinction, as he still has older metal material under his own name, and his acoustic work still has heavier & punk glimmers. Also, what does all this mean for Chase & The Bastards and The Black Lodge Masters, let alone the remaining EPs of Christmas? Stay tuned!

To go along with the above Awokest news, Chase posted two new songs from that project in the last couple weeks, including the 7 minute title track from his upcoming album "Solving the Human Condition" (which is now credited as an Awokest release), and as embedded below, his new "live jam" named "Cosmic Joke". For reference, these were posted on his Facebook and YouTube pages respectively, not Awokest's. The former's unmixed, but the chaotic assault comes through nicely on both songs, and the vocals are more black metal reminscent, so genre fans may appreciate these in that way! Give Chase/Awokest's newest songs a listen above & below!



Also today, Chase's past Blood Shed Productions colleague Tyler Gibson has a new solo track to share from his grindcore project Crucify the Whore, entitled "Scab Transfer"! Posted to the Blood Shed YouTube channel on January 18th, this is credited to an upcoming C.T.W. EP named "Crucifition Inquisition" (sic), and its just the instrumental track at this point, with vocals to be added. The first half will please Blood Shed diehards with it's live metal attack, but the second half is largely the drum machine track and extra effects played backwards (I ran the song through Audacity to make sure.) Not a bad song at this stage, so give it a listen below!



We'll close today with a Sublime cover from new local alternative rock band Man Feelings! Filmed at their Room 21 show on Saturday (as live streamed to the venue's Facebook page), this is of the band covering "What I Got" with Id Iota frontman Christian Lemay on guest vocals, so if you've missed that band live in recent months, this may help tide you over. Nice to see Man Feelings dipping into the ska punk well, and Christian definitely makes the most of his stage presence on this well done cover, but the vertical camera angle isn't optimal. Give Man Feelings' new video a look below, and we'll let you know if any heavier or punk covers of theirs turn up!



That's all for today, but stay tuned for this month's CD review on the site next, so look for that if you're an Awokest fan! Thanks everyone!