Local Hard Rock Video Showcase!!

For our first proper news post of the month, let's dive into recent updates from hard rock acts on both sides of the border, and we'll work our way north with videos and updates from two E.U.P. acts, so here's what you should know on this Wednesday night!

We'll start with new videos from two Sault Michigan hard rock bands, starting with (some of) the long awaited footage from local metal band Tarnished's set at the Rock Recovery Battle of the Bands in Alpena last month! Their first two songs are now viewable in separate videos on their Facebook page, including Alex, Parker, and Josh playing their original "Metalyn" to start their set, and as embedded below, a brand new original song named "Intoxicated". Unfortunately, the videos are uploaded in vertical portrait orientation with pillarboxing despite being standard definition 4:3 videos, and I have no idea why that is. If you can get past the formatting, you'll find strong performances (they must have been for Tarnished to place third against downstate competition), and "Intoxicated" is a promising track that would be interesting to hear fleshed out in studio! Check out Tarnished's first two songs at The Aplex above & below!

Next up, here's our first look at fellow local hard rock band Exit 808's current-ish lineup, as per their Facebook page on Monday! Despite the timing, none of this appears to have been an April Fools prank. Exit 808 revealed there that they've actually been working with Heavy Lies The Crown frontman Brandon West (who shared the stage with the then-Double Jack at the LSSU Battle of the Bands last fall) towards recording their cover of Black Sabbath's "N.I.B." in a proper studio setting, posting it that day as a Facebook video. With the band now having two vocalists, Amy Beach & Dillion Semasky split vocal duties here, trading verses & sharing choruses. While recent fill-in bassist Blaze Beairl is tagged in the post, the bassist here is actually Bob Libick from the Marquette hard rock cover band Spun (and Nudge. before them). Many Yooper readers will recall seeing Spun & Nudge. often at points west and at local gigs.

Kudos to Bob for helping out here! No word yet on a full time bassist, for the record. This cover is well done with strong recording quality (given what H.L.T.C. do for themselves, it's no wonder), and while there are better technical examples to really show the band off, starting with a familiar classic makes sense. They juggled Amy & Dillion as well as you could for a song that never had two singers, but I might have had them alternating lines, not just verses, a'la the recent version of "Hellraiser" with both Ozzy Osbourne and Lemmy Kilmister's vocals. Check out Exit 808's new studio cover below, and stay tuned for more from them!

Now let's head to Sault Ontario for the latest from local/Barrie alt-hard rock musician Mike Haggith, who's been very quiet since last fall's Soo's Got Talent finals in terms of his own solo output. On March 22nd, he shared a video from his personal Facebook page to his solo project's Facebook page featuring him and most of his local backing band playing his song "Carousel" at a jam session last month. Always good to see Mike back in town! The (sadly vertical) video features Mike playing alongside A Dire Setback guitarist Chris Nielsen and Mike's old Din bandmate Brandan Glew (now of The Wyld Stallyns), both returning to his live band for 2024. No bassist is present in the video, but ex-Gnaeus bassist Matt Fronzi (now of The Golden Scoundrels) is tagged rather than Jacob Quarrell. Matt did play with Mike at The Soo's Got Talent semifinals last year when Jacob was double booked, so he should fit in if true!

As well, Brandan's ex-Re:Born bandmate Elly McWatters is also tagged, perhaps implying that she will do backing vocals this year, as she had previously done at some of Mike's bigger festival sets. The video was captioned that "summer is just around the corner", implying that we'll see Mike & crew on stage in a few months' time. The guys aren't really positioned well to be captured in frame (the vertical angle doesn't help), but if this tight and melodic jam is anything to go by, Mike's dates this summer should be a good time! Give it a watch for yourself below!

Finally for today, here's the second original song from new local hard rock band Bullet Train! This union of ex-Sense of Truth frontman Cory Murchison and ex-Fort Creek bandmates Robin "Bones" Lee & Anthony Fabiano posted this "at home demo" to their YouTube channel as a scheduled premiere on Friday, and like with their debut original "Atmosphere", song #2 ("Illusions") is accompanied by a lyric video featuring AI-generated imagery. Also like on "Atmosphere", the song is a charged take on recent events, with Cory singing about waking up to what you're being told by larger forces, or history could repeat itself. Analyzing the lyrics and intent of them is a little beyond my scope, but Bullet Train definitely have more of a contemporary topical influence than Cory's prior bands, so keep that in mind. The song has a slower and more deliberate pace, but it's still a heavy rocker that fans of Cory's will like musically, so check it out for yourselves below!

That's all for today, but stay tuned for weekend concert previews on the site next! Thanks everyone!