Our Recap Of Episode #4 Of Metal Morpheus On The Borderline!!

Let's do a deep dive into episode #4 of local internet radio station The Borderline's weekly metal-centric series Metal Morpheus today, as host Josh Amendola looked at Canadian thrash metal bands in the July 25th installment! Remember, new episodes premiere on-air every Sunday at 9:00 PM, with episode #9 scheduled for the 29th before being posted to check out on-demand. As before, episodes are genre-centric, but this is the first time that Metal Morpheus has explicitly focused on domestic talent rather than international ones. Maybe it's too obvious to talk about Metallica and Slayer and such for a thrash episode? For presumed ease of access, the episode's on-demand streaming page now includes the track listing for what's played on air, but there are some minor mistakes which I'll correct here when needed. For the sake of avoiding repetition, I'll include timestamps in brackets for each song rather than thinking of new ways to say when segments begin.

Episode #4 begins it's one hour runtime (after the busy opening song) with Quebec thrash metal legends Voivod, who Josh does give some key information about re: their musical inspirations. Two songs of theirs are played on air, including "Nuclear War" (0:45) and "War & Pain" (9:20), with a tribute to late guitarist Denis "Piggy" D'Amour" tucked in between. The next segment dives into Ottawa speed metal icons Annihilator, who also get two songs featured, including "The Fun Palace" (14:40) & "Never, Neverland" (20:35). The first half of the episode concludes with a segment on Toronto metal pioneers (and multiple time local headliners) Anvil, who get just one song, but it's their most famous one, namely "Metal On Metal" (26:20). For the second half, we dive into the local scene by way of inactive local metal band Pillory, who Josh briefly played with, but the focus here is on their 2012-2014 thrash era.

Specifically, Josh plays "Shattered By War" (30:30) from Pillory's 2014 EP "Cringe At The Cross", which is definitely underrated, especially given the band's later shift to death metal. Josh also gives some nice props to original guitarist/songwriter Andres Duchesne, who passed away in 2013, a year before the EP came out. Before moving on, Josh did mention that Pillory are still active and are still planning to release a new EP called "Angst of Existence" (named for the song of the same name), but this has not been publically confirmed by the band proper at press time. If you're curious, Pillory have not played live since opening for Black Crown Initiate two years ago this month, and have not posted any Facebook updates since 2018, but if the band proper shows a public sign of life, we'll let you guys know! Local fans get double the money's worth here though, as hardcore punk quintet Destroilet are up next!

Presumably considered fitting for this episode given the common bleed-over between hardcore punk and crossover thrash, Josh doesn't give Destroilet a similarly detailed introduction, but he does play two songs of theirs at this juncture, including "R.O.Y.C." (38:50) and "Eternal Fire" (41:35), both from their 2012 self-titled album. Note that Pillory are given an accidental credit for the former on the episode's page on The Borderline's website, while the latter song is erroneously named "External Fire" there and in the episode itself. Ottawa thrash legends Exciter get played next via their song "Violence & Force" (44:05), before looking at contemporary Toronto thrash band Razor's song "Fast & Loud" (48:20). Entering the home stretch, Josh looks at defunct British Columbia speed/power metal band 3 Inches of Blood, themselves former local headliners, and their on-air track is "Deadly Sinners" (52:45).

After signing off and thanking everyone, Josh plays one more Destroilet song to close the episode, namely "Lifer" (57:55) from 2015's "Fed Up!" split with The Ripcordz and fellow locals Jack Spades. Another entertaining episode of Metal Morpheus here with lots of fast-paced, technical Canadian metal on display, and Josh is definitely getting more and more comfortable as a host, especially with how his enthusiastic intensity jumps when selling each band/song! Give episode #4 a listen at the above links, check out episode #9 live on Sunday at 9:00 PM, and stay tuned for more news and notes on the site this week! Thanks everyone!