UMFM 101.5 Suburban Home - 200 Stab Wounds show review (Winnipeg, September 3rd 2024)

Dying Remains returned to Winnipeg with their brand of Albertan hardcore and groove-driven death metal. Sharing members with Satanic Tea Co. and Stench of Death, the band has a bit of touring experience and prove themselves to be massive underdogs in the Canadian death metal scene with every performance.

Stabbing from Texas performed as a rare 3 piece, as vocalist Bridget wasn't able to make their winnipeg date. I wish her the best and I hope to see them back soon. They performed a short jam set of some new and old material alike with guitarist Marvin handling all vocal duties. Highlights of this band include their blazing fast drummer Nat Conner, and bassist Matt Day's brutally quick bass shredding.

Upon Stone is a melodic death metal band that I wasn't really familiar with before the show, but seeing them live with no expectations was definitely a great move, I was very impressed with what I heard. With dual guitar harmonies and a sound somewhat like a band such as Shadows Fall or Unearth, they'll definitely be hitting some playlists for me.

Balmora is a straight edge hardcore band who I've been wanting to see for months. Blending elements of melodic metalcore and pure hardcore, in a sense similiar to bands like Counterparts or Single Wound, Balmora's emotionally driven hardcore set brought out the two steppers in the pit.

Ohio's 200 Stab Wounds first headline tour marked their return to Winnipeg, coming a few months prior to Manitoba Metalfest 2024. Supporting their new record "Manual Manic Procedures" on Metal Blade Records, the band was in their element, showcasing their brand of chunky, slow death metal riffage with vocalist Steve Buhl showcasing his incredible talent of multitasking, with him taking on intricate lead guitars and shredding while performing vocals. Another highlight of the band comes in the form of drummer Owen Pooley, who's blazing fast, consistent foot speed set the backbone for the band. A huge selling point for me on this band was hearing the drum solo in "Masters of Morbidity" live a few months back, and it was nailed again in this performance. Overall an excellent performance from 200 Stab Wounds, with a solid setlist to boot.

Manitoba Metalfest Day 2 - Show Review (Allegaeon, Kataklysm, Septicflesh, Decapitated)

 Manitoba Metalfest Day 2 started as soon as some people got to the venue from work - with local band Wilt starting their set at about 5:50pm. That did not stop the entire room being filled in mere minutes after the sounds of a few chords hit. The incredible lighting set the mood immediately and their atmospheric black-doom metal style set the theme for what was to come on this night - an array of experimental, progressive death metal.

Sadistic Embodiment from Edmonton was next to play, playing a headbanger's ball of old-school influenced, pure death metal which didn't let up. Tyler Augusto (of Winnipeg metal bands Entity and Cell) filled in on bass for their performance.

Next, to start the tour off proper was Allegaeon, with an album released in 2022 and another one in the pipeline, potentially coming very soon, the band is back with a ton of new material. Their performance -  which was nearly a year after their last show in Winnipeg - was extremely impressive. Noted highlights include their excellent stage presence, with vocalist Ezra Haynes acting as a conductor for the audience, like an orchestra performance. The technical ability that Allegaeon puts on display is also nothing short of impressive, with guitarist Greg Burgess shredding complicated scales. Keep your eyes peeled for new Allegaeon music within the upcoming months!

Kataklysm's return to Winnipeg proved that Canadian death metal is not dead, performing a great selection of material from their recent release "Goliath", as well as older material from their large discography, including from their Juno award-winning release "Of Ghosts and Gods"

Greek symphonic death metal outfit Septicflesh were up next with a breathtaking, eyecatching performance - many thanks in part to frontman Spiros Antoniou's commanding stage presence and a fantastic stage prop design and light show. Septicflesh drove through their 50 minute set with sheer power, technical display and shared material from both new and old albums alike, including their latest, "Modern Primitive", released in 2022.

Poland's Decapitated ended the night with their signature brand of technical and groovy death metal. Commonly described as one of Europe's top death metal bands, they showcased their versatility in both groove and technicality.
Touring in support of 2022's "Cancer Culture", the setlist included a great mix of old and new, and vocalist Rasta is great at working a crowd.

Having the Cancer Culture tour come to Winnipeg was a blessing, with some great local music to start it. The weekend doesn't stop here, as NinjaCats Productions Manitoba Metalfest 2024 had another great tour roll around the next day - the Dying Fetus/Full of Hell "Maryland Rampage" tour, with special guests Kruelty and 200 Stab Wounds. Read my review of that show here.

Manitoba Metalfest Day 3 - Show Review (Kruelty, 200 Stab Wounds, Full of Hell, Dying Fetus)

Tyrants Demise started the last night of Manitoba Metalfest 2024 off with a brutal assault of melodic death metal. Highlights including vocalist Keith's strong stage presence and the cover of Pantera's "Fucking Hostile" to close out their set.

Kruelty have been making waves in the Japanese hardcore and metal world since they started releasing music in 2018 and especially when their debut record "A DYING TRUTH" came out in 2020. Kruelty first came to Winnipeg last year supporting Sanguisugabogg, Gates to Hell and Vomit Forth, and it was great to see them back and playing a great setlist to a packed house. Kruelty would go on to play an aftershow with a longer setlist, taking place at The Handsome Daughter.

Cleveland's 200 Stab Wounds responded with an onslaught of brutal, old-school-style death metal. Touring in support of their upcoming new release, "Manual Manic Procedure", which releases in June, they performed a stacked setlist which included "Masters of Morbidity" and material from their debut album, "Slave to the Scalpel". 200 Stab Wounds are a band to watch in the modern metal scene, and this excellent performance showed them prove that.

Full of Hell came back to winnipeg for the first time since 2017 and performed a 45 minute set of noisy, grindcore and powerviolence inspired extreme metal that did not let up for one minute. Being one of the most well known bands to do this sound, they spontaneously go from ambient soundscapes to harsh, vicious walls of noise in a matter of seconds. Full of Hell is currently touring of their album "Coagulated Bliss", which came out at the end of April.

Lastly, Dying Fetus is a band that I was never super familiar with, admittedly - at least compared to the other bands on the bill. I was pleasantly surprised by the technical ability and consistency as well as the effort and stage presence that these 3 guys put on. Dying Fetus played a good mix of new and old material, including really early stuff from their 90s era.

Ninjacats Productions and the staff of The Park Theatre put on an unforgettable weekend of brutal, heavy metal and hardcore, all 3 days sold out in record time, and proved Manitoba is still a great place for heavy bands to play. Here's to many more fests and great lineups in Winnipeg. I also want to give a quick shoutout to the amazing sponsors and supporters of the festival: our friends at Sookram's Brewing; CKUW 95.9; Intergalactic Sauces; Eye and Ear Control Records and Rotting Reign.

Suburban Home on UMFM 101 5 - Andrew Neufeld (Comeback Kid)

 

Picture credit: Aaron Schwartz

Welcome to Suburban Home: At Home. This is the show where we showcase the best of hardcore, alternative, emo, punk and everything in between. This past week, I had a great time speaking with Comeback Kid vocalist Andrew Neufeld. We talked about the upcoming tours (including the cross-Canada tour with Spy in March-April) and the new EP 'Trouble', out March 15th on Nuclear Blast/Sharptone/New Damage Records.

(This interview was conducted on February 12th, 2024)

 

How would you say the new songs compare to the last record, Heavy Steps?

 

AN: I would say it's more of a continuation than anything. Most of these ideas are from that era.

 

What are your influences on the new EP?

 

AN: Lots of different stuff, from alternative rock on Trouble in The Winner's Circle to classic hardcore and Nine Inch Nails on some of the other tracks. As a personal thing, my biggest influences vary but can be mostly be found in hardcore. From old classic hardcore like Madball and Bane to new stuff like Deez Nuts and AFI. When we were writing [Trouble in the Winner's Circle], I even heard a lot of AFI influences seep through my writing.

You are no stranger to features. Can you talk about some of the notable recent ones you've done in the past?

AN: Sure. The Ignite and The Amity Affliction parts were both knocked out in the same afternoon/session last summer. Those were 2 really fun ones, especially working with the guys in Ignite. The Silverstein feature [Die Alone] was another fun one as living in Toronto, I'm naturally pretty close with them (especially Shane). They asked me to come on and I did it in a session, I feel like I brought out my inner Chris Hannah [Propagandhi frontman] on that one with my delivery! When Silverstein and my band were both on tour with Senses Fail and Koyo in Europe, I missed the guest vocal the first time live! Shane came up to me and was like, hey, you have to come do this! So every date after that, we would finish our set, Silverstein would go on and I would go take a shower, and run on stage just in time to do the Die Alone feature. It was pretty awesome.

How would you compare the Winnipeg music scene to the Toronto music scene?

AN: So, I'm only familiar with the band's themselves, Trial Time, Human Target, Propagandhi of course. I haven't been in the Winnipeg show scene for a while since moving out here a bit ago. But I do want to say this. For a serious band, I think it's easier to tour and get your start in Toronto than in Winnipeg for obvious reasons. Toronto is just so close to everything, and we have great venues like History and The Opera House here. Toronto is ultimately Canada's Los Angeles in a sense, as far as music goes.

Can we talk about your upcoming tours?

AN: Yeah! Our first stop is South America, it starts February 21st. We're going to Brazil, Chile, Uruguay for the first time and Costa Rica. South America is HUGE for hardcore. After that is the Canadian tour with Spy from California. We're going east coast to west coast, as far as Halifax to Van City. SPY was only originally only supposed to play Vancouver to Montreal but due to demand they got added to every date. April 3rd is the hometown show at the Park Theatre, you guys have some wicked hardcore bands there like Human Target and I'm really excited to announce who the openers are for each city. We have a few smaller venues like our Toronto and Edmonton dates but we are not upgrading venues. Once tickets are gone, they're gone. So depending on when this goes up, you might want to check your local joints for that stuff. In the summer, we're doing Europe, festival season. We can't wait for that.

*as of the posting of this, Winnipeg and Toronto tickets are quite low!*

What is your personal favorite track from the EP? 

AN: I'll say 3 and 4; if you ask Jeremy he'll likely say 2 as that one was his baby. That's the thing about this ep is woth our collaborative efforts and with different people bringing different influences to each song, there's a song for every sort of punk fan on here.

Check out Comeback Kid's new release, "Trouble", out March 15th.

Check out the links below for Andrew's links + CBK links.

Streaming

Comeback Kid Website (merch)

AJN's Instagram

TOUR TICKETS

Suburban Home on UMFM 101.5 - Interview with Nick Schendzielos (bassist of Job For A Cowboy)

 

Picture by Chris Clumpp

Welcome to Suburban Home: At Home. This is the show where we showcase the best of hardcore, alternative, emo, punk and everything in between. This past week, I had the honor of speaking with bassist Nick Schendzielos of Job For a Cowboy (also a member of Havok and Cephalic Carnage). We'll be talking about JFAC's upcoming album (and first album in a decade), 'Moon Healer' out February 23rd, 2024 on Metal Blade Records.

(This interview was conducted on February 5th, 2024)

Can we talk a little bit about the comeback of Job for a Cowboy, what were you all doing in that time. Reading into it, the comeback was plotted for 2019-2020 but you were discussing new music to go alongside Sun Healer as far back as 2017.

NS: Even 2016 I've got some tracks for! In April 2016, we played the Modified Ghost Fest in Vancouver, the one-show world tour for Sun Eater. I remember coming home, driving and listening to 3 or 4 of the new tracks. So a few of the songs are nearly 10 years old. As more songs trickled in through 2017, by 2018 we had at least a version of all of the tracks, so we decided to get serious. We did the whole thing, "does this make sense?" "does this part need to be faster?" We had kind of planned to get into the studio by the end of 2018 but it just didn't happen. Things took so long because we're so far apart, we're not able to jam in a room. Everybody (besides me) has a serious job. Tony just graduated from med school and is a doctor in Ireland now. Johnny is a serious coder for a giant IT company and has a family. The timing was more difficult than when we were younger when we were able to say "hey, let's go live in a house together and write a record". I think we were able to get something pretty unique and authentic out of that, especially since we were recording so slow and we had so much time to reflect and refine the hell out of it. Navene [Koperweis] recorded drums in 2020, and then I expected Tony to fly down and record guitar and then I would record bass, but we weren't able to make it work with scheduling; he had to record everything himself in Ireland, on his weekends. I finally recorded bass in July 2022 so we had all the essential guitars, bass, drums done. Johnny wasn't able to make it down here until 6 months later, so he smashed most of the record vocals on New Year's Eve going into New Year's Day. His recording process was spanned over 2 years but in 1 night *laughs*. Then mixing and mastering takes a while as you could imagine, we even changed mastering engineers part way through to a guy I was working on something else with. All this painstaking stuff and the result is this that's coming out in less than 20 days, which is unreal.

 Who was the producer on the new record?

NS: That was Jason Suecof, who we had on the last record. As we wanted to keep this a sister/companion record, we didn't want to stray too far away from the formula of the last record too much, so we kept the same base and tried to keep as much of the process of making Sun Eater as we could.

Who did the artwork for the singles and album cover?

NS: I don't know exactly who did the single art at the moment, but Tony Koehl did the artwork. You can find his instagram at @tonykoehl. He also did the album cover for the previous record, so again it's about keeping that process. If you look at his pages, he does all this sweet leather work and all of that.

I absolutely love the style of art on some of the earlier Job For a Cowboy records. It reminds me of some of the Whitechapel/later Despised Icon album covers but more 3D. Would you by chance know the name of the artist(s)?

NS: Yeah, so I don't recall who did the Doom EP, it might've been Johnny? I believe Genesis and Ruiniation and Demonocracy were all Brent Elliott-White. He was an artist for the cards for Magic the Gathering. That's kind of why it has that game character vibe. He's done stuff for Megadeth, Trivium, Coheed and Cambria and the list goes on.

Can you talk about getting Navene on drums for the record?

NS: Navene is a monster on the drums. If you've ever seen him play, it's like destruction. It's like those drums did something real bad to him in the past and he's making them pay, you know? I've always loved watching him play though. I first met him when he was playing with Animals as Leaders on the 2010 Summer Slaughter Tour, I was out with my band Cephalic Carnage and we'd watch those kids play every single day and Navene was so much fun to watch, my favorite drummer to watch on that tour. So later on, him and Johnny toured, the Animosity and JFAC tour in 2008, and they did a lot of stuff together after that, so they ended up forging a friendship. So much so that they ended up forming Fleshrot. Johnny and Navene meshed together really well on that record they put out. Flash forward to this new record, we were trying to lock down a drummer and Johnny said "it would be sick if Navene could play for us". He went down to record drums with Jason Suecof in 2020. We've been trying to get him to play with us live but Entheos is his baby and I don't want to step on that. It would be really cool to do a Entheos/Job for a Cowboy show or tour and get some double duty drumming going on.

How'd you guys find Mike Caputo? (live drummer)

 NS: So, Mike did the one show for us, the Blue Ridge Rock Fest. It was a really fun show, we didn't have food besides some snacks but we did get booze! Mike came in, very professional and crushed it. He's a machine and has crazy feet. We were in a pinch for that, we were trying to get Charn (Jon Rice) to play with us, he came and hung with us where we were staying for Blue Ridge, just because we were Virginia, and it was great. Mike was super pro, came in and did all of our click tracks, we put the sample board together, and handled all of that. The dude is a wiz with that and a sick drummer.

Is there anything else studio or live related that you would like to mention that I missed?

NS: I think we did pretty good! We're just going to be putting this thing out, and we'll be working on some videos. I did the first two with my buddy Kyle Lamar from Digital Mile. Kyle is one of the best guys on the planet, incredible cinematographer, incredible videographer and great editor, he just kind of does it all. He's also super open with sharing all his knowledge with whoever which is super awesome. When the label told us we could do the videos with Kyle years back, Johnny and I ended up just brainstorming mad, to really bring to life what the character was going through, or create some sort of vision or aesthetic. We would then bring it to Kyle, and he told us how we would shoot this. So then I'd have to go buy props, set design, hire actors and things like that. In the end, all 3 of us had so much fun with it. Our newest video for 'Beyond the Chemical Doorway' was done by Chris Clumpp, who has a company called The Vagrant Key. We had a girl named Kelly Harris come out and help with special effects, and she had actually worked with Mastodon! Since it's really hard for us to tour because of everyone having jobs, these videos are just another way to keep telling the story, if you will!

Can we talk about the lyrics on the album?

NS: Yes! Johnny and I worked very close, and Johnny is such a prolific writer, his lyricism has grown so much since the early days. I mean the Doom EP lyrics are cool, but he's really just refined his process and the lyrics have matured a lot. As far as concepts go, everything on the album is loosely based around a character going through an existential crisis, basically navigating his way through life with hallucinogens and diving deep into that whole rabbit hole. It's like a death metal album born from the mystical confines of an alchemists' laboratory.

As a musician who plays a lot of festivals as well as regular shows, how do you compare the two, do you like one over the other?

NS: Festival life is fun, man! I mean, I love headliners, I love support or co-headliner on 1000-cap venue, 500 cap venues even. Festivals are just really fun because it's a huge conglomerate of people. It's an opportunity to play to tons of people who may or may not know your music. The same deal may go for a co-headliner or support slot, but when the range of bands is about 50, the range of fans is BIG! You could be playing to 5000 people and how many of those people have heard of your band before? You get the opportunity to convert a lot of people into fans, and at the same time you get to make a lot of new friends. We're looking forward to doing some of the DWP festivals (these include Aftershock, Rock on the Range and countless others). Other than that, Europe! They kind of set the bar for how heavy festivals should be, with Wacken, Summer Breeze, Brutal Assault. The USA is answering back really well now though!

Thank you Nick for taking time and doing this interview. The new album 'Moon Healer' is out on Friday, February 23rd, 2024 on Metal Blade Records!

Links below to streaming and social media.

Spotify 

Nick on Instagram

JFAC Instagram

Job For A Cowboy - Metal Blade Storefront

 

 

 

 

 

Capstan interview on UMFM 101.5 - Suburban Home: At Home

 

I spoke to singer Anthony Demario and drummer Scott Fisher of Orlando progressive post-hardcore outfit Capstan about their new EP, 'Nulla', out now on Fearless. Check it out on Youtube. This interview was recorded as part of the Suburban Home: At Home series, where I strive to showcase the best alternative, hardcore, emo and punk bands that the world has to offer. Thank you for tuning in! 

Capstan Interview

Big Wreck North American Tour 2023 Show Review - December 17th, 2023 (Winnipeg, Manitoba @ The Regent Casino & Event Centre)

 

 

This past Sunday, December 17th marked Big Wreck's return to Winnipeg, supporting their new EP "Pages". The Regent Event Centre was treated to talent from 3 great rock voices, which included Daniel Greaves of the Winnipeg rock band The Watchmen and Texas King.

First on stage was Howard Mandshein of 92.1 CITI, introducing the singer of one of his favorite rock bands in Canada, Danny of The Watchmen. Winnipeggers may recall the sold-out Watchmen show a month previous at the same venue, which was a kick off show for Danny leaving to join Big Wreck on the road. Danny came on stage and immediately went into a cover of James Taylor's "Sweet Baby James", quietly walking back to his electric piano and exhibiting his talent on more covers of tunes such as "Highwayman" by The Highwaymen and "Watermelon Sugar" by Harry Styles. Interlaced into his setlist were original acoustic Watchmen songs, including "All Uncovered" and "Stereo". Danny's greatest strength as a performer, especially during acoustic/quiet sets, is his ability to feed off of the crowd's energy, strongly highlighted in this performance, taking some (albeit polite) jabs to people firing off requests or singing wrong lyrics.

Soon after Danny left the stage, Texas King from London, Ontario came on. This was the bands' 2nd time in Winnipeg this year, as they had previously headlined The Park Theatre on their "Whatever You Break" tour back in April. Texas King lighted up the crowded with some fiery but passionate blues-influenced alternative rock. Anthems such as Changes lit up the crowd while "Whatever You Break" and "Home" provided a more nostalgic vibe to the bands' set, the latter of which had a massive crowd participation flare to it. Texas King even had some of the younger fans in the theater on the edge of their seat with their version of Post Malone's "Chemical".

 In Texas King's Spotify bio, singer Jordan MacDonald notes: "when you hear us, I want you to know that it's gonna be a crazy night". Jordan and his band delivered on this, and set the energy for the rest of the night.

Following Texas King's leave from the stage, Big Wreck hit the stage for the first time in Winnipeg since 2019. Their set was a solid mix of new material and old classics, which include "The Albatross" and "That Song". Also included in the setlist was a performance of Ian Thornley's own 'So Far, So Good' (which was released in 2004, after Big Wreck broke up). Big Wreck's current lineup includes drummer Sekou Lumumba (who I interviewed here), who had previously worked with Thornley when he was doing solo material. Other highlights of the set included a segue from their song "Ghosts", into The Doobie Brothers' "Long Train Runnin'" (sung by guitarist Chris Caddell), and the final encore performance of "The Oaf" which was extended into a long jam, with Danny Greaves coming on stage to perform a segment of the track with them.

The sold-out return of Big Wreck was overdue, and was a night to remember. As of writing, Big Wreck are currently finishing up the final 2 dates of their North American tour, before they get a well-deserved rest this holiday season.

-Fish, Suburban Home (UMFM 101.5, every Wednesday from 1-2pm) 

Check out the links below for streaming and merch from the bands.

Texas King streaming 

Texas King bandcamp

Big Wreck streaming

Big Wreck store + site