Tag Archives: Ontario

Bloodred – Nemesis, Sig:Ar:Tyr – Northen (2016)

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Bloodred – Nemesis (self-released, 08 April 2016)

 

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Sig:Ar:Tyr – Northen (Hammerheart Records, 15 April 2016)

 

Hey there, ladies and gentlemen of the internet! I hope you’re having an okay start to your week. Typically I’d be talking about how Mondays are so terrible or whatever, but truthfully, I realize that things could be much worse. Around the middle of last week, I experienced a little bit of a minor medical emergency — hospital visit, a couple days away from work, that sort of thing. Everything around here got really disrupted and it kind of sucked, and I can honestly say I’m actually glad to be back to the normal daily routine, however awful and soul-crushing it may be.

Okay, with all of that out of the way, let’s get to the music! I’ve had to shuffle things around a bit since my schedule got so thrown off over the past several days, but we’ll do what we can to get back on track and get to sharing the albums and other news you people need to hear about. Today let’s take a look at a pair of releases from earlier this month, each by a one-member band (although each had some assistance on these recordings), and each having a Viking connection. It has been a month since the last time we talked about Viking metal — don’t forget that Amon Amarth are still in the middle of their North American tour, with a few weeks left — and it seemed like it might be fun to do it again. One of these albums actually includes a reference to the same source material as the Jomsviking album, and the other deals with ancient Viking settlements in North America …

 

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Three Reviews: A Hat Trick of Canadian Thrash

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Three Reviews: A Hat Trick of Canadian Thrash

 

Hello, Readers! Here we find ourselves on another Monday, and I’m sure you all are about as excited to be returning to work as I am. You may have noticed — or maybe you didn’t, I don’t know — that I hadn’t managed to write anything throughout most of last week. Such is the unfortunate result of being busy working extra hard, making sure everything is as caught up as possible, before missing an extra day of work due to the holiday weekend. The holiday in this case is America’s Independence Day, which took place this past Saturday but most businesses were also closed on Friday for its observation. However, while I may not have had time for writing during the week, I spent plenty of time listening to music. Always listening to music.

And I noted that during those days there was another holiday celebration taking place — Canada Day, the celebration of the anniversary of the official formation of Canada as a country (technically, as a Dominion under the British Monarchy), was last Wednesday. Therefore, it seemed fitting to spend the day perusing all of the Canadian music I currently have on my MP3 player. I noticed that this included a handful of recent (within the past month or four) independent releases from Canadian thrash bands. And then I decided to attempt a feat that (as far as I remember) has never before been accomplished on this website: a triple review! It’ll help that two of these three releases are actually three-song EPs, but still, this is an unprecedented level of ambition. So with that in mind, let’s get straight to it….

 

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Corrupt Leaders – Grindmother (2015)

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Corrupt Leaders – Grindmother (self-released, 03 February 2015)

 

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Musk Ox – Woodfall (2014)

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Musk Ox – Woodfall (self-released, 17 June 2014)

 

Earlier this week I wrote about the current Agalloch North American tour, which began last night. In that post, I made mention of the fact that when the tour hits Ottawa on the third of July, the band would be joined by an acoustic group called Musk Ox. Led by guitarist Nathanaël Larochette (who contributed some interlude music to the recently-released Agalloch album The Serpent & the Sphere), and also consisting of cellist Raphael Weinroth-Browne and violinist Evan Runge, this instrumental trio has just released an album of their own, earlier this week.

The second full-length album under the Musk Ox name, Woodfall is the first to feature this particular line-up (the 2007 self-titled release was exclusively a solo project featuring Larochette on all instruments). This new album contains one continuous piece of music (over an hour in length), which was composed by Larochette and Weinroth-Browne. The larger piece is broken into five named sections; three of these (part 1 “Earthrise,” part 2 “Windswept,” and part 4 “Above the Clouds”) run around ten minutes long, while the other two (part 3 “Arcanum” and part 5 “Serenade the Constellations”) each exceed seventeen. On the whole, I find Woodfall fascinating for both its beauty and its simplicity, and I suspect many of you out there will feel the same way.

 

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Fatality – Psychonaut (New Album // Coming to Pittsburgh TONIGHT!)

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Fatality – Psychonaut (self-released, 28 June 2013)

 
Hey, guys and gals! Remember Fatality? I first introduced you to this cool Canadian thrash band last summer when they were holding a contest, but at the same time I wrote a few words about their 2011 T.F.E.S. EP. That three-song release is still available to download for free (I’ll toss the Bandcamp widget at the bottom of this post), and the title track (“Thrash Fuck Eat Sleep”) is still one of the catchiest pieces of thrash metal I’ve heard in ages.

Anyway, the guys have a brand new album out now — they released Psychonaut two months ago, and since then they’ve been jaunting all across the United States and Canada on what they’re calling the “Towards Disastour”. (It’s a play on words, because there’s a song on the new record called “Towards Disaster”. Funny, right? These guys are just full of hilarity — just check out vocalist Spencer Le Von‘s ongoing tour blog over at Dead Rhetoric, or his series of Backseat Podcasts, or the band’s blog which he occasionally updates “with fervent apathy”. Seriously, check that shit out.)

The Towards Disastour tour is coming to a close tonight — Wednesday 28 August 2013 — with a stop in Pittsburgh, PA. Readers who live nearby are highly encouraged to come on out to Howlers in Bloomfield tonight. The show will also feature local thrash/traditional heavy metal greats Vermithrax and the NWOBHM-flavored Lady Beast (see full details about the show here). If you need more convincing than that (or if you live somewhere far away and won’t be able to go see the band in person tonight), keep on reading and I’ll tell you a little more about the new album Psychonaut.

 
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Vesperia Now Have A New Guitarist; New Album On The Way Soon!

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Good afternoon, readers! I hope your day is going well. In my opinion, this Monday doesn’t seem to be coming to an end nearly quickly enough! All I’ve wanted to do all day is go back home and get back in bed. Oh well, only a couple more hours before I’m able to do that.

In the meantime, I’d like to share some news with you. It’s been a few months since we mentioned Vesperia — the Canadian black/folk/pagan metal band who used to be called Bolero — and as you might have guessed, they’ve been as busy as ever during that time!

Following the release of their first demo EP under their new band name, the re-release of their 2011 full-length album, and the announcement that they were searching for a new guitarist, it turns out that they now have filled that missing spot in their line-up, and have been spending this winter working on more new material!

 
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Vesperia – Voyage from Vinland (FREE DOWNLOAD, LIMITED TIME ONLY!!)

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Vesperia – Voyage from Vinland (self-released, 08 January 2011)

 
Ladies and gentlemen and whoever else might be out there reading this:

This coming Saturday — the 20th of October — blackened folk/pagan metal band Vesperia are headlining a show in the band’s hometown of Oshawa, Ontario (city motto = “Prepare to be amazed.” I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried.) Also appearing will be Battlesoul, Will of the Ancients, and Unbowed, and for more details on the event you can check out this page.

Anyway, in celebration of this occasion, Vesperia wanted to do something special for their fans. Giving away downloads of their new demo EP from earlier this year (The Swordsman) wouldn’t work though, because they’ve already done that (see here for a full write-up about that release) — so instead they’ve decided to give away their previous album for free!

Voyage from Vinland was actually the first (and only) full-length album released by Bolero (in January of last year), prior to that band changing its name to Vesperia. But the whole thing — all eleven tracks, forty-five minutes of it — has been re-released digitally under their new name on their Bandcamp page, and for this week ONLY you can download all of it absolutely FREE! This is only supposed to last until Saturday’s show, though, so ACT FAST!!

 

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Vesperia Searching for a New Guitarist (Plus, a Preview of their Upcoming Live DVD!)

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Canadian Celtic/Viking metal band Vesperia are definitely not strangers to change. In fact, as you may recall, it was just a few months ago that they announced they had undergone a metamorphosis and rebirth with a brand-new name (they had formerly been known as Bolero).

Well, the winds of change just keep on blowing, it appears, because the band is now announcing that they are looking to replace a guitarist.

 
In the words of bassist/lead vocalist Morgan Rider,

Hey guys,

It really sucks to have to be typing this and we never thought in a million years we would be doing so… Change has been a defining word for Vesperia in 2012 and so far we have held our heads high and kept our sights in the clouds with all these testing changes and new commitments we have been taking on each week that would have normally seen a band dissolve. Aspiring for the greater purpose with our music and selves has always been our focus.

Our comrade, lead guitarist and brother-in-arms, Tim, has recently felt that in his and the band’s best interest he must hang his hat on guitar duties for Vesperia. There is no tension or bad blood between any of us and him business-wise or personal whatsoever and we will carry on feeling the mutual respect and brotherhood we’ve always had for each other.
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Biipiigwan – Nibaak EP

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Biipiigwan – Nibaak EP (Handshake Inc., 27 February 2012)

 
Man, what a horrendously ugly day this has been. As I begin writing this review, I’ve been at work for over seven hours already, and my feet are STILL cold and damp from traipsing through the streets of downtown Pittsburgh during a deluge of Noachian proportions, after getting off the bus this morning.

If they ever published a list of ways to make being at work less miserable, I can guarantee “walk around with wet socks all day” will not be anywhere on that list.

Nevertheless, regular readers of this blog have probably figured out by now — an ugly day calls for some ugly music! (Very observant regular readers may also have noticed that ANY day can benefit from some ugliness, regardless of the weather!)

So to help me along today, I’ve turned to some new friends, whom I discovered two weeks ago when they came to play a show here from their native Ontario. The band is called Biipiigwan (don’t worry, it’s easier to pronounce than it is to spell — and in fact it isn’t really that hard to spell either — drummer Steve Vargas informed me that the double “i” sounds like an “e”, so just say “BEE PEEG wahn“), and their newest release is an EP called Nibaak (again, the “i” sounds like an “e”, so that’s “NEE bawk“).

Now that we got all that out of the way, let’s turn our attention to the actual music. I’ve already mentioned that it’s ugly, but that isn’t nearly descriptive enough — this is grimy, sludgey, filthy, and soul-wrenchingly painful stuff. Plus, you can listen to it for free or download it for any price you choose. Honestly, what more could you ask for?

 

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Get ’em While They’re Hot: The Fourth (and Final) New Vesperia Song is Available for FREE!

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STOP! You should totally check out THIS POST instead. Vesperia‘s entire The Swordsman demo is now available to download for free; the full details are included there.

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