LOCAL CONCERT ALERT (Fort Creek), A New Album Release, And More!!

After a quiet holiday season weekend, we're back on the SMS with a Monday night post including some updates and videos from two different local bands, a new and quite seasonal album to buy/stream, and leading off, a LOCAL CONCERT ALERT for the end of the year. With all of that said, here's what you should know!

Local southern hard rock quintet Fort Creek will cap off 2022 with a New Year's Eve party on Saturday, December 31st at The Water Tower Pub! As far as I can tell, this will be Fort Creek's first ever appearance at the Great Northern Road venue, and doing so on New Year's Eve is definitely a big way to debut there! Last seen with their "Christmas blowout" at Soo Blaster earlier this month, Fort Creek's new lineup continues riding high with assorted live dates and their recent charitable initiatives, and hopefully their hard rocking covers and select originals prove to be an ideal way for revelers at The Water Tower Pub to ring in 2023! This 19+ event does not have an announced start time (likely no earlier than 8:00 PM), but The Water Tower Pub is going all out with this, including an appetizer buffet, midnight toast, and party favours included in the $60 ticket fee, and if you believe their Facebook post, "tickets (are) going fast".

There is also an overnight New Year's Eve hotel room package at the on-site Water Tower Hotel with breakfast and a concert ticket included for $175 ($275 for two people), so see above if that interests you. The admission fee will scare many off, but they're just pulling out all of the stops to make this party one to remember, and hopefully there's a sizeable crowd for Fort Creek to end the year with! Visit the above links for more details!

Next up, here's a surprise (yet still long teased) album release, as Sault Michigan classical metal band Theatre of Night have put out their second full-length Christmas album "Dreams of Winter" on their Reverbnation page! On sale there for $9.99, it was posted on December 2nd, and is their first actually on-sale album (free Spotify playlists excepted) since they quietly released "Guntower Democracy" in 2018, and it 100% confirms their teasers and hints at putting out another Christmas album, effectively an expanded re-recording of their 2013 instrumental album "Christmas Night", but now with vocals from Rachel Mender on some songs. While every song on "Dreams of Winter" is a revision labelled as "V2" (version #2), two of the songs were not on the original "Christmas Night" album, namely "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" & "We Three Kings", and some songs have been renamed and re-ordered.

Song lengths are similar to the original 2013 versions, implying that they largely kept the old arrangements, but how different is "Dreams of Winter"? Due to the holiday season timing, I'm actually going to try and review this album before Sunday so it's timely for the holidays (it'd be odd reviewing this next month), and if this makes the site by Sunday, I'll bump our planned Chase Wigmore album review to early January, as it'll be still as relevant and about as new then. In any event, a new album review is coming, but if you want to hear some new-ish Christmas carols gone symphonic metal, buy or stream Theatre of Night's new album above!

Also, here's some new videos from one of new Sault Ontario metal trio The BAG's concerts at Reggie's Place this past weekend! Filmed & posted by attendee Stephanie Laplante to the band's Facebook group on Sunday, these were uploaded in a batch post along with a few photos from the gig. The videos see The BAG covering the instrumental bridge of Golden Earring's "Radar Love", playing an apparent new original song with a punk sound (if it's a cover, I couldn't match the lyrics up with anything), and as embedded below, them covering Marilyn Manson's version of The Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This)". Alas, all three videos are under one minute long (the punk original clip runs for just 20 seconds), and they're also all shot and uploaded vertically, but luckily, the sound holds up across the board, and Stephanie was at a good angle to capture the whole band despite the aspect ratio and the somewhat dim lighting.

From what we hear of The BAG in these videos, they sound good and are rocking out as well as you'd expect, though I'm not sure that "Sweet Dreams" is the cleanest fit for Spencer's vocal range given how slow and creepy the Manson version is plotted out. Check these out above & below, and stay tuned for more from The BAG!

Finally, here's the latest from local/Toronto progressive metal band PROV3RB5, starting with a lineup addition, as they have enlisted former Role Models drummer Phil "Philly Gee" Greco as a full band member! He was officially announced via their Facebook page on November 25th, replacing existing bassist Bryan Lee, but his joining the band was hinted at on personal accounts in the preceding weeks (though he joined after the recording sessions for their debut EP "What Dreams May Come"). Phil is arguably better known locally as a punk drummer, but he has the chops to hang with Ben & Bryan, and it'll be interesting to see how he fits in on future originals! Elsewhere, their song "Treasure Forest" was featured & positively reviewed on the web series Local Band Smokeout last month (the relevant clip was posted to PROV3RB5's Facebook page), but just as a disclaimer, "local band" doesn't mean the Soo, the show covers local bands from any market who want their songs reviewed on air.

PROV3RB5 have also been selling a new line of official band clothing that you can check out/buy at this link, and on December 6th, and they shared this "Reel" from Phil's personal page of the early drum tracking for their first new song since he came on board. Not much to see/hear yet, but good to see things are underway! For a longer video, they did share this video of guitarist Benjamin Roswell playing the solo from "Particles", but I can't embed it here as he's playing along to the studio track, and Facebook content matched it to itself, so external embedding is not allowed. Solid work though, so check out all of the new PROV3RB5 updates above, and stay tuned for more on the site soon! Thanks everyone!