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Back in March of 2007 I finally got the chance to meet the late great Ray “Black Metal” Wallace. Ray was the founder of “The Heavy Metal Music Association of Canada”, an organization with the goal of achieving more mainstream coverage of metal in Canada. That night Ray was promoting the first of three Canadian Music Week metal showcases at the now defunct Metal Bar in Toronto. Until that point we had only spoken once before by phone when we were arranging an interview for a band he was managing.

So when I heard he was putting on a metal event for CMW (and three-nighter at that), I had to know how he pulled it off. In the past when CMW rolled around I would scour the listings, looking for a glimpse of heavy music. Ray said to me that when he approached CMW about putting on the showcase he was told that “metal just isn’t our priority”. But when Ray replied that he was going to put on the showcase whether they endorsed it or not, they consented.

That November, Ray passed away. When I saw that this year’s edition of CMW seemed to be packed with heavy music, I wondered just how much of it was because of Ray’s efforts. Sure some of the shows were tours that were already coming through town, but they carried the CMW endorsement, meaning that the legions of wristband holders wandering from club to club had the chance to be randomly assaulted by metal music. The following is a quick run-down of the heaviness that I managed to take in at CMW this year.

Thursday March 11, 2010

While hair-metal comedy stars Steel Panther took to the stage at The Sound Academy, I managed to make it to the Annex Wreckroom in time to catch Harvey Milk from Athens, Georgia chill out the audience with their doomy noise-rock. The band had been broken up for eight years when they released their reunion album Life… The Best Game In Town. Currently they’re promoting the re-release of what was supposed to be their debut album entitled s/t (no it’s not self-titled, it’s just called s/t).

The most impressive thing about Harvey Milk is their ability to be extremely heavy and yet relaxing at the same time. Although dominated by Sabbathian riffing, their set was a very understated affair. Faster melodies gave way to sparse arrangements and stoner grooves that kept the crowd enrapt even if it wasn’t very mosh-friendly.

The headliner for the evening was Kansas City’s metalcore legends Coalesce. Like Harvey Milk, they also took an extended leave-of-absence. Last year’s comeback album OX, their first in a decade, was lauded by both fans and critics. The band moved efficiently through a set that included a number of songs from the latest release before taking a few audience requests. This was probably a wise move since, as vocalist Sean Ingram stated, they hadn’t played Canada in about eight years.

Many of the long-time math/metalcore fans I spoke to at the show called it a “nostalgic” experience, because for them, Coalesce was the band they cut their teeth on in the mid-nineties. In the end the band put on an energetic show, but it was mostly for the faithful long-time fans that had been pining away for them lo these many years, rather than those converted by their most recent offering.

Friday March 12, 2010

Over at The Opera House the power-metal crazy fans headbanged away to Sweden’s Hammerfall. I however decided to take in Metal Blade Records’ first CMW showcase at the Bovine Sex Club. Metal Blade’s Canadian roster is eclectic to say the least, and most of the crowd seemed to be made up of retro-rock fans who came to see Montreal’s Barn Burner.

As such the uber-techincal death metal riffing and jazzy time changes of Toronto’s Starring Janet Leigh didn’t seem to have much of an effect. Watching SJL perform is a bit of a challenge. Dense a-melodic walls of sound can, in a split-second, give way to mild grooves that could please the stuffiest of classical jazz fans. But a challenge isn’t something that seemed to be wanted that evening, and SJL were mostly met with polite applause.

Quebec City’s Aeternam faired a little better, with their Middle-Eastern influenced melodic death metal sounds actually managing to get a few hipsters’ heads banging. But while their melodies got a few people moving for the first time that night, the more intense sections and guttural vocals drew a bit of ironic laughter from some of the folks up front. A bit of a shame since Aeternam’s album Disciples of The Unseen is one of the best Canadian heavy releases this year, and they have the live chops to back it up.

When Barn Burner finally took the stage the place was jam-packed and the line had started to form outside. The crowd response was immediate, as the band ripped into selections from their album Banger. Barn Burner’s sound is like a cross between sludgy stoner-rock and traditional heavy metal. Although I felt that some of the opening songs came across as a bit generic, the band saved some of their more complex and dare-I-say proggy tunes for the second half of the set. By the end I had to admit that I’d been won over by a high-energy performance that was equal parts catchy rock n’ roll and heavy stoner jamming.

The crowd thinned out a bit before a set by Vancouver’s Bison b.c. who were promoting their upcoming album Dark Ages. Bison have a few things in common with Barn Burner, but favour the route taken by groups like Mastodon and High On Fire. There’s far more jamming and not so much attention paid to catchy choruses. For those who had waited it out until their 1AM start time, they did not disappoint. The set featured a lot of infectious grooves and headbanging riffs, with the new material towering above the rest. They’ve obviously stepped up their game technically on this new release and it definitely came across live. Although they weren’t as instantly gratifying to the crowd as Barn Burner had been, it was certainly a perfect set for the faithful who clung to the front of the tiny stage and ate up every riff thrown at them.

Thus concluded my second of four nights of heaviness at CMW.

Click here for Part 2

Andrew, the EM intern