Heavy Lies The Crown's New Album, Plus Lots Of New Videos!!

I have a new news post for you guys on this Saturday morning, including new videos from an assortment of artists from a few different locations, but leading off, we have details on a new album release (well, on a free streaming service), so here's what you need to know!

As teased over the past week, St. Ignace, Michigan progressive metal band Heavy Lies The Crown released their self-titled full-length album yesterday on Spotify! As best as I can tell, the album is not available on other platforms, so you can't actually buy it outright (at least not yet), but the final product can be streamed on-demand for free! The 12 song album includes re-recordings of all four songs from their 2019 debut EP "Scatter Brain" (with "Thing #1" renamed as "A Hell Bound Heart"), plus the previously posted new tracks "Every Step Of The Way" & "Voices", and six brand new cuts named "Friend", "Interlude", "Princess", "*69", "Dead Teeth", and "A Sold Soul". It is great to finally see "Heavy Lies The Crown" out for public consumption, and while I'll hold comment pending a possible review if the album goes on sale, their prior studio tracks should get fans suitably hyped! Check out all twelve songs for yourself on Spotify!

Next up, let's head to Sault Ontario for some new videos from local party metal duo The Apocalypse Afterparty, who have had some lighter content to share on their Facebook page this month, like this video where frontman Paul Stanghetta analyzes similarities between songs by Moneen and Boys Like Girls, and this one where he has a minor mishap with a lighter. Their newest video has Paul & Amanda leaving SaultOnline/ONNtv's offices, with Paul heavily apologizing for them exiting from the wrong door, but wait, what were they doing there? The band proper didn't share the video, but Paul was interviewed about the band yesterday during ONNtv's morning show First Local, and the episode can be streamed on-demand on SaultOnline's YouTube channel! The Apocalypse Afterparty segment begins at the 17:26 mark, with co-host Heidi Ivany interviewing Paul for about 5 minutes.

Here, Paul discusses his musical influences, the connectivity of the local music scene, groups Paul's opened for in his various bands, and his short term goals for The Afterparty. Fun and light interview buoyed with good energy from both Paul and Heidi, so give it (and the whole episode) a look below, especially if you miss Soo-produced local news like this!

Also today, let's check out a couple more YouTube reviews of songs from local/Manitoba alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith's new album "Bridges", as sourced from the many album reviews shared to his Facebook page in recent weeks! First, I forgot to note yesterday that Mike's song "From The 55th Parallel" was reviewed by Thomas Christ for episode #11 of You Rock! as well, this time as the opening song of the episode (ex-Bizotic frontman Brad Griffith also turned up under his solo handles Gortium85 & Coax Chrome). Strong review of this song here, if brief, but Thomas made up for it in the next two! And as a prelude to Mike's interview with Studio Live Today's Pete Johns from earlier this month, Pete closed episode #76 of his similar YouTube series Your Music Live (where the host listens to & give reviews of independent music) with Mike's song "The Nature Of The Times"!

Yes, Brad/Coax Chrome is also featured in this same episode. Pete called the song "a beautiful way to finish off our show here today", and live-stream viewers seemed to agree, so give the whole episode a look below to hear Mike and a lot more international musicians getting some deserved exposure! "An Act Of Strength" and the song "Bridges" also feature in the next two episodes of Your Music Live, viewable here and here.

Finally today, I have a prolific local musician to move to our inactive band links, namely Dafter, Michigan hard rock singer/guitarist Kenneth "SweetKenny" Sutton. An extremely prolific musician who released dozens of albums in the 2010s, including ten that got reviews on the SMS from 2013-2018, SweetKenny has not posted any music-centric updates on social media since November 2020, meaning we're past our one year cutoff, though Ken is still artistically active as a screenwriter, with his website being redesigned to put his own screenplays ahead of his music. This does flow with his late-period albums all being scores for usage in films and video games, so Ken definitely has an artistic mind being put to use, and he did win Best Script Short at the Accord Cine Fest earlier this month! I hope SweetKenny resumes his music at some point (even if just as scores), as he definitely has talent and a lot of good original ideas!

I did want to end on a seasonal note however, as the last song Ken posted on his Facebook page (as of today) is an original song from last November named "Christmas Snow Is Falling", which he said is "a sad song about a lost love". This is a softer number with just Ken on vocals & guitar, and given the more reserved nature, there's less of an Elvis Presley affect on his singing like you often heard in his heavier pre-score material. Change of pace, but not badly composed, so give it a listen below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for more news and notes on the site next week! Thanks everyone!