Spades GT Updates From August 2025!!

Today's post takes us back to the world of local/Barrie crossover thrash quintet Spades GT, so what have they been up to since we last left off with them at the end of July? Well, the guys were getting ready for their set at the fifth annual Rye Fest, a yearly outdoor concert festival in Brantford (2 hours south of Barrie, 7 hours southeast of the Soo), as held by Rye Field Studios, where Spades shot performance and interview footage both in 2023 and last month. Spades GT were the ninth of fourteen bands at this all day event on August 9th, which was headlined by Peterborough "beatdown/core" quartet Seagrave, who were one of the scheduled touring bands for last year's cancelled Crucifest in Leeburn. Bizarrely, the guys did not post their usual vertical recap video to Facebook from Rye Fest, but I don't know whether that was an intentional decision, if their footage is just really delayed, or if they completely forgot.

If you want to see new Brantford footage, head to Rye Field Studios' YouTube channel, as they have been featured in a bunch of new videos this year! Some are "Shots" videos that clip out individual songs from their 2023 set at Rye Field that you can watch in full at this link, but how about the brand new stuff from this summer? For this quick three song set, the guys were filmed playing two songs from their new album "United" (specifically the title track and "Demons"), before closing with "Hands", which opened their 2023 Rye Field performance. Lineup changes aside (James out, Matt and Sean in), this is otherwise formatted similarly to the 2023 video, including introductions by hosts/studio owners Ben Zander & Shane Briand, and high quality multi-cam footage of the guys in action. Thankfully, the lighting is much better and far less green than last time, though it does go black & white at parts.

For the record, "Demons" from this set also got clipped out for a separate "Shots" video earlier this month. If you like excellent quality performance videos of local bands (let alone horizontal ones), you should take to Spades GT's Rye Field encore with ease, so check out the intense and heavy performances for yourselves below, and hopefully Rye Fest videos surface!

The other new Spades content from Rye Field's YouTube channel is a brand new interview that was released at the end of July, so what should you know there? Conducted on July 5th prior to the "United" release party in Toronto, the interview does not feature drummer Tyler Reiner, who left early to make it to The Bovine to deal with soundcheck and prep for the concert proper. This interview was episode 20 of Ben & Shane's interview series The PodCouch, and it features J.D., Daniel, Matthew, and Sean talking about "United" and its underlying messages, the band's evolution since they last played at Rye Field, the genres and sounds on display on the album (Matt primarily wrote and sings on "Filthy Lie"), and hype for the release party and their then-upcoming shows. When addressing their return to Spiderfest in Meyersburg, Daniel noted that "we were in a band called Jack Spades" prior, a distinction that I haven't seen made in modern interviews.

The back half of the interview is mostly loose and casual banter, but I'd love to see more of Matt's arcade game collection! Solid interview that keeps fans updated on what Spades have been up to this summer, so give it a watch for yourselves below!

Let's close with some non-Rye Field content from Spades GT, starting with a new review from August 21st of "United" from Gustavo Scuderi of the Canadian metal website The Headbanging Moose. There, Gustavo gave the album a 3.5/5 rating, saying that it combines "hard-hitting riffs, driving rhythms, and compelling vocals to create a sound that’s both familiar and refreshingly contemporary", while praising the title track", "Filthy Lie", and "Wrecked" the most of the eight cuts. Note that this review credits Sean MacNab on bass even though he didn't join the group until a few weeks after the recording sessions wrapped (Daniel was seen tracking bass in one of the teaser videos from the sessions). Either way, it's a complimentary and detailed review that you can check out at this link! Two days later, the guys shared posters for their upcoming fall tour slate in Southern Ontario (sorry, no Sault Ste. Marie return yet).

The first of those shows saw Spades GT play their first Barrie show in "a while" (which equalled almost three months) at C.W. Coop's on September 6th, where they opened for Daniel's other band The Fast Life on a bill that featured their good friends in G.F.U. once again. That show did indeed feature a recap video, so we'll have more from that and other fall content from the former Jack Spades in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that and more on the SMS soon! Thanks everyone!