Updates To Our Band Links, Plus Chase James Wigmore Updates!!

Let's do some catch-up in today's post via long overdue updates from a talented local solo musician, and leading off, house cleaning notes on our active band links, so here's what you should know!

We have two bands to remove from our active local metal/punk band links today, the first being local death metal band Exploring Detritus, who have been returned to our inactive band links due to over a year's inactivity. Four years after the former Kaepora Gaebora fell inactive, guitarist Dan Souliere and original drummer Anthony Boudreau surprisingly brought the group back in April of last year, but Exploring Detritus never progressed past jam session videos despite some very promising lineups, last posting on their Facebook page in July 2022. Extreme metal hasn't been super prominent among local bands post-pandemic, but hopefully we hear more from Dan, Ryan, Justin, and Anthony soon, and don't miss brief frontman Mitch Sirie in his array of current projects, including his and Justin's recent Bear Hunters revival! As their only live gigs were under the Kaepora Gaebora name, they are listed on the SMS under that name anew.

Next up, local pop punk project Forever Will Be have sadly been deleted outright from our band links, as they no longer have a formal social media page centric to the band. As it was, their now-deleted Facebook page was scarcely updated, with project leader Ryan McLaughlin primarily posting Forever Will Be updates on his/their label Relentless Audio's Facebook page. That said, Forever Will Be proper are likely still active, with Relentless Audio last posting about the project in December, so even without a proper band page, hopefully we hear more from Forever Will Be soon! Note that Relentless Audio did post two Facebook videos in February to demonstrate what Ryan can do with his computer programs to make songs sound better, including this clip of him improving the quality of "Acolyte" by the inactive Cambridge, Ontario metalcore band The Intake Of Glass, but the other video didn't produce a song match on Shazam.

We'll close today with some the latest media and updates from prolific local extreme metal/folk punk musician Chase Wigmore! We haven't posted much about him since the winter, the Darsombra show aside, but back in February, he posted the second part of his trilogy of "The Pit" songs under the project name Manitou, as uploaded to his "Jason Walker" YouTube channel. Part 3 was belatedly uploaded in April, and while not extreme metal, these marry his guitar prowess and alternate influences fairly well, with part 2 dipping into Black Lodge Masters-esque techno stylings, and part 3 even had clean singing layered into the track. Effectively done and accentuated with trippy visuals, so don't bypass them (or part 1!). On April 5th, Chase noted that he'd been practicing and playing a few open mic nights, but had largely been "chilling out on music" in recent months.

His long-gestating and allegedly "last" solo album "The Chaotic Rite" is 75% complete, and Chase noted that it will only run 25-30 minutes (a big drop from the prior rock opera teasers for the former "Story About A Kid Named Todd"), but his aim here is to focus on quality over quantity. His planned book on the guitar "Ars Cithara" is "mostly done" but was then on a break, still needed to be edited & restructured, and could be split up into a trilogy. Basically, Chase wanted to take time to "step back and become a human being again" rather than "focusing 95% of my time in music", but he hopes to release both by year's end. Fingers crossed! Four new non-Manitou videos have been posted online in mid-2023, including this trippy animated piece on his Facebook page set to ominous techno music (is this AI art?), plus a new original song named "From Beyond The Clouds" featuring dark but cleanly sung vocals.

While not extreme metal, it's certainly an intense and well layered song with some eerie background effects that are accentuated by the images of forests and bad weather, so give it a listen above! The others have Chase performing unplugged on camera, including his older original drinking song named "Running Out Of Beer" and, as embedded below, him playing his song "The Guilt & Shame Of Being" from his most recent album, last fall's "We Are All Going To Die". This one is heavily filtered in monochrome and layered with dark imagery, but both songs play into Chase's live free-wheeling intensity and passion, and it's good to see him rocking out, so check everything out for yourselves above & below!

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