Tuesday, April 1, 2025

Updates On New & Upcoming Local Albums, Plus Two Concert Cancellations!

Before we dive into this post, I wanted to note two concert cancellations/postponements, one that we missed on here and one that is still ahead. First, local classic/hard rock cover quartet Generations cancelled their Friday nighter at Reggie's Place last week due to that night's ice storm, as per drummer Tony Santoro on their Facebook group at 10:55 PM on Friday, when the show would have been in progress. I hadn't heard of other bands on Friday that called off that night's show, though Generations were back as scheduled on Saturday night. Seeing as the announcement came that late, I obviously couldn't mention it in a post prior, but apologies anyway, and hopefully things went well for Generations at Reggie's on Saturday! The other postponement is actually for this Saturday's planned Dressed To Kiss concert at The Sault Community Theatre Centre.

The news broke on Rock 101's Concert Track segments on air, and promoters Miles Management confirmed in this Facebook comment reply that it will now take place on Saturday, August 9th, pushing the D.T.K. show back exactly 19 weeks. Miles Management cited "unforeseen circumstances" for the rescheduling (source here), and while an updated ticket link from the S.C.T.C. is not out yet, tickets bought for this Saturday will still be honoured. Disappointing for fans of Kiss that this talented tribute band had to delay their local debut, but hopefully the summer season date will work out!

Today's post otherwise looks are information on an upcoming album, and leading off, here's some details in a regular post on reunited local midwest emo/psych rock trio Fuller's new studio album "II"! I touched on everything in our review yesterday, but I try to actually mention unspoken details from prior news posts in a new news post too, in case readers don't check the album review first. "Fuller II" is available to buy on Bandcamp for $7 or on iTunes for $9.99, and you can stream it on Bandcamp, Apple Music, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and the Africa-geared Boomplay (at press time, there are no physical pressings of the album, though bassist Mark Rand had floated the idea in the pre-release promotion). "II" was released through the Advance Records imprint, and with one exception, is almost entirely made up of songs from the band's late-era run in the mid-2000s.

The album closer "Six" is a re-recording of the untitled sixth song from their 2002 EP (which had no song titles at all), and retains songwriting credits for ex-members James Kersley and Dan Fagan. Mid-2000s drummer Nathan Sauve is similarly credited as a co-writer on everything else. The songs on offer are presented in the exact order that they were played at Fuller's reunion concert at LopLops Lounge in December 2023, with the exception that their covers of American Football and Moneen songs that night were replaced by two short filler tracks named "A" and "B", one being an acoustic ballad and the other being a dark instrumental. Emo isn't my first love in terms of rock genres, but "II" is a solid album that fully realizes the Mark/Nathan era of Fuller, so definitely buy or stream it at the above links, and hopefully a proper release party happens when Mark is back home next! Here's the opener "Batteries From Old Flashlights" from YouTube!

We'll close by heading over to Sault Michigan, where local metal solo project X's & Y's announced on March 14th that they are releasing their second studio album later this year! To be entitled "Ruination Coactive", project leader Jason Mills revealed on their Facebook page that he "nearly finished both albums at the same time, but (he) needed to focus on one", that being last fall's debut album "The Obsidian Dream". Jason noted that he wrote the new album immediately after the previous during the pandemic lockdown in 2020, and he plans to release "Ruination Coactive" on streaming services and on CD once again. The cover artwork (reminiscent of old Konami games for the NES) was also shared, as was the eight song track listing. Is the fourth track "The Gemini Machine" a hint towards a late May-early June release, and/or a reference to this being album #2? We'll keep you posted!

No public word yet on how these songs will compare to what Jason put out last fall, but "The Obsidian Dream" had a bunch of guest performers, was recorded at Scholomance Studios in Brimley, and was entirely instrumental. We'll be six months past X's & Y's' album review last fall this month, so a review of "Ruination Coactive" will hit the SMS very shortly after it is released, so stay tuned for more from X's & Y's in the near future, and look for this month's "Where Are The New Albums?" post next! Thanks everyone!

No comments: