Defunct Local Band Profile Series: Swampghas

It is belatedly time for this month's Defunct Local Band Profile, but with a change in artist. Originally, I had randomly selected Dafter, Michigan hard rock solo project SweetKenny for this month's profile of a past local metal/hard rock/punk act, but as it turns out, SweetKenny returned from a two year hiatus earlier this year and has posted new songs online, so look for all of that in an upcoming news post! To replace him, I stuck to formula and went with the nearest alphabetical Sault Michigan/E.U.P. band in our defunct links that I haven't previously spotlighted in this series, and we found a promising one for sure, so here's what you should know!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Swampghas

Hometown: Eckerman/Strongs, Michigan

Genre: Groove/Death Metal

Lineup (Members not in their last known lineup in italics):

Jason Mills (X's & Y's, Life's Eclipse), vocals/bass
J.R. Johnson (East Branch, Black Market Body Parts), guitar
Doug Reed (Drayton Fever, Tarnished), drums

Audio/Video: Building on an unreleased demo in 2006, Swampghas were working on a debut album entitled "The Raco Tower Incident" at frontman Jason Mills' own Scholomance Studios, to be released through his now-defunct independent label Werehold Records. This never came to fruition, but eight videos of theirs can be found on Werehold's YouTube channel, largely of instrumental audio tracks, be they 2006 demos or new recordings meant for the album. Notably, all of the band's songs run for under 3 minutes, which was done by choice. Here's their music video for "Bog"!

Info/Analysis: Not to be confused with the later Sault Ontario hard rock band Swampgut, Swampghas originally launched in 2001 as a side project from members' then-bands, but fell inactive circa 2003 due to outside commitments, though a demo was recorded in 2006 towards a planned reunion. The band reunited in 2011 as a studio-only project, primarily working on "The Raco Tower Incident" and also submitting songs for Werehold Records' Friday the 13th new music posting events, becoming regularly featured in those through March 13th, 2015. Album plans were delayed by studio maintenance & upgrades, and Swampghas quietly fell inactive before November of that year (as they weren't part of that month's Friday the 13th event), with Werehold proper folding in 2018. As one of the few Werehold acts that was not a solo project and released actual videos, Swampghas were easily one of the most prominent things that the label had going at the time!

While all of Swampghas' surviving "backwoods metal" material is instrumental, they had a crunchy groove metal sound that got in and out without overstaying its welcome, and the guys all performed well on the tracks! Alas, Werehold artists were not known for successfully releasing albums, Swampghas included, but original E.U.P. metal bands were getting scarce by the mid 2010s, so they still stood out. Follow Jason's current project X's & Y's to see what he's been up to as of late!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I hope you guys liked this month's Defunct Local Band Profile! We're back in Sault Ontario next month to kick off another 2-1-3-1-2-1 cycle between the Twin Saults, and next month's randomly selected band will be 2014-2016 grunge/alternative trio The Pixo Control! Look for that on or around August 10th, and for a new news post on the site tomorrow! Thanks everyone!