Change can be good. And for A New Face For Marley, change came in all shapes and sizes through a series of drummers, wrapped up in one final swoop of a cross-Pacific move to western Canada.
Oh, and don’t forget the name change that followed shortly after bassist David Blume and guitarist Jared Hansen gave up the sunshine and surfboards of Australia for the seemingly yearlong winters that Calgary has to offer.
“When the band first got together, we were called Music, The Real Killer,” Hansen explains. “But, we were watching TV …

A “psychomantium” is a chamber designed for gazing into the spirit realm, usually a darkened and mirrored room set up to induce a trance-like effect through sensory deprivation. The mirror-gazing practice has roots dating back to the oracle pools of ancient Greece, where reflective surfaces were considered conduits to other worlds.
Lethbridge metallers Psycomantium have slightly more recent origins than the dowsing style of their namesake, and a slightly different purpose.
With a full-length debut album in the works – and plans to take it on the road once completed – guitarist …

What do heavy metal and pole dancing have in common?
Not a whole lot, actually. That is until Calgary metalhead and amateur dancer Monika Deviat decided to fuse the two together.
“Pole Junkies dances at Snatch [Rock Bar] right now. Fridays and Saturdays from 10 to 12. We perform. They have poles on the bars. We just kind of dance and advertise for ourselves, and so I’ve been doing that. And I book all my shifts around metal shows, and sometimes I’ll go to a metal show afterward. And I thought, ‘Why …

“A mini Stonehenge will drop down halfway through the set when we remove our wizard capes to reveal the – just kidding” Lee Aaron jokes about her upcoming Alberta performances.
And I have to smile at the throwback, because the first thing that pops into my head is a leather clad Aaron brandishing a sword in the video for “Metal Queen” [1984, Attic], the hit song off her album of the same name, the one that launched the Canadian songstress into the rock history books and forever cemented her with the …

“Ahhh, well, I can’t say much about it yet, but I know we’re coming to Canada in July,” Chimaira guitarist Rob Arnold said from the other end of the phone line.
“And that’s all I can say about it,” he teased.
The Ohio-based groove metallers recently announced a U.S. tour to start at the end of July, and since they’ve been out of the recording studio for a while now, they’ve got some time to kill.
What isn’t shrouded in mystery is the supreme metal awesomeness that is “The Infection.” The six-piece band’s …

“When we first started, we weren’t very serious. We’re still not serious, actually. We’re serious about the songs and the music, but as far as getting up on stage and acting hammed… well, it’s a massive production,” admits Admiral Nobeard, guitarist and frontman for the thrashy pirate metal trio Swashbuckle after zigzagging around his point.
Okay, so maybe rum, randiness and little high seas hijinx are a given when you dress like Captain Cook and play alongside an inflatable ship to a crowd more eager to raise their hooks than horns …

All-Ages Auditory Assault at The Den
It was an onslaught of thrash, hardcore, folk and death metal at The Den in Calgary on April 25, courtesy of Scarab Productions. The all-ages event kicked off at 6 p.m. and attendees were treated to a variety of sounds from an all-Calgarian line-up. Seven bands hit the stage, including newcomers Moradin and Thrashomatic, Akakor, Norrath, Epi-Demic, and veterans Kilyakai – who have, until recently been tied up in the studio putting the finishing touches on their full-length debut album – and Exit Strategy, who …

“The Order of Chaos” Track List:
1. Get in the Pit
2. Invictus
3. Forever In Hell
4. Hate What You’ve Become
5. Sullen Darkness
6. Neverending
7. Cast In Stone
8. Left In Ruins
Guitarist John Simon Fallon and bassist Sterling Burrows first met up and started jamming together in 2003.
“It’s a very complex story,” Fallon said, when asked how the rest of the Edmonton-based quintet rounded out The Order of Chaos, adding that one of the first gigs they ever played together was with drummer Tim Prevost’s progressive death metal band Quietus.
“Tim arrived at the venue with …

First metal show: My first “metal” show was Tool in the ’90s in Vancouver.
Favorite live band: It’s a very close tie between Satyricon and Hanzel und Gretyl.
Best thing about going to live metal shows: The shows are always impressive, but the fans are the most fun. Everyone gets so excited – and us girls get to dress all snazzy.

There’s no easy way to spend long periods of time out on the road with other people, no matter how awesome they are. Hell, you could be Mary friggin’ Poppins and I’d probably still want to crush your skull and throw your stinky feet out the window after a couple of days. But when you’re in a band, road trips are a reality – or at least an inevitability, depending on which stage of the game you’re at.
And trust me, it is a game. Ever watch “Survivor?” That’s nothing. We’re …

The sign in the window read “Space For Lease.” Bob Richardson was a bassist for a French-Canadian rock band at the time, and he and his band mates needed a place to jam, so they called the number and arranged to check it out.
“And the fellow that owned the building, he said, ‘Well sure, why not,’ and rented us the little space in the front,” Richardson says, pointing to a pool table just around the corner from Slaughterhouse Studios‘ front entrance.
By the mid ’90s, the building – which had once …