Canadian Metal
Introduction
The dictionary defines heavy metal as:
1. A metal with a specific gravity greater than
about 5.0, especially one that is poisonous, such as lead or
mercury.
2. Music. Very loud, brash rock
music, often with shouted, violent lyrics.
However, the Smatchimo dictionary of words n, such, (in other word
I define it as…) some killer stuff to play when you are
skateboarding… For our heritage project we chose to pick three
bands each and research them. So, I picked Into Eternity, a local
band from Regina that I heard about through my guitar teacher, who
used to be in the band, Billy Talent, a band from Streets Ville
Ontario, and Alexisonfire, another band from Ontario.
Questions
Who are they?
What category are they in?
Where are they from?
What is there background?
Why did I pick them?
To answer the first question, the three bands I
picked were Billy Talent, a rock band from Ontario, Alexisonfire,
a hard core band for Ontario as well, and Into Eternity, a local
band from Regina that my old guitar teacher used to be in. I
chose Billy Talent because of their distinctive style and the way
that their singer writes lyrics. There are only a handful of bands
that have inspired me as much as they have. One of these other
bands is Into Eternity. Tim Roth writes some of the greatest, yet
weirdest guitar riffs I have ever heard. He also writes some
pretty crazy lyrics as well. The last band I chose was
Alexisonfire, I chose them just because I like the song “water
wings” and a lot of their other songs, but the haven’t inspired me
like the other bands did.
Moving on to the second question, all
of these bands are considered to be in different categories music
wise. You might me able to class them in just metal in general,
but there are many different types of metal, and each band fits
into their own. First we have Billy Talent. Punk rock, now when I
say punk rock, most people think loud noise that doesn’t make
sense, lots of screaming and angry people. However, that is more
of a scremo type sound. Billy Talent has more of a softer sound,
yet the lyrics tell a story, usually of hard times, and there is
some screaming in a lot of the songs, but if you have been
listening to these bands a lot, you develop an ear for kind of
making note of these differences mentally. Next, there is Into
Eternity. I want to be able to put them in one exact genre, and
they come pretty close to being, just thrash metal, however, this
band is so unique, they have created there own genre. So to
classify them, I say thrash/death metal. You probably are
thinking, what’s the diff? right? Well the difference is that
thrash metal, is exactly what you would think it is, music in
which every track sounds almost the same, with few difference from
riff to riff. Death metal is similar, but the difference is the
riffs and lyrics. Most of the time, in death metal the lyrics are
about suicide or murder, however, Into Eternity uses lyrics of
pain and depression, so the part that I get from death metal are
the guitar riffs, very heavy and yet easier to listen to. The last
band doesn’t have some real special genre all there own, but can
be classified into simply hardcore. This is a term we metal head’s
use to describe a screamo like sound which just basically means
lyrics often screamed to a heavy guitar riff. So as you see, not
all heavy bands can be called just metal.
This next question has pretty short answers for it.
Billy talent met at a high school in Streets Ville Ontario, and
formed a band there as well. Alexisonfire also met in Ontario, I’m
not sure exactly where the met but it was somewhere in Ontario.
Lastly, Into Eternity, they met in Regina and where originally
formed there as well but some of the members that came to the band
later on might have been from other places.
This will probably be the longest part
of the report as each band has had a lot happen to them, get
comfy. I believe Into Eternity originally formed in 1997, but I
haven’t come across anything to confirm that, but any way, a few
years after the band was formed, the recorded a demo album which
later got the attention of a Swedish metal label called DVS
records. Then in 2000, they released a self titled album called
“Into Eternity”. Then they released another album in 2001 called
“Dead or Dreaming” on DVS and Century Media. However, through this
record, the band line up changed. Then in 2004, they released the
new record, with once again a different line up. This one was
called “Buried in Oblivion”. Things that contributed to sound of
this album were the recent deaths of Tim Roth’s mother and Rob
Doherty’s dad.
The next band I’ll talk about is Alexisonfire. This band was
formed in 2001 in Ontario because of a series of band break ups.
Some of the members of the band had played together in other bands
but the came together with front man George Logan to create an
unstoppable force of “catholic school girls”. In 2001 they
released a demo that got distort entertainment and EMI’s
attention. An 11 track self titled album was recorded and released
in 2002. This is a hardcore album, a cross between killer drum
beats, good heavy lyrics and some sweet guitar riffs. This grabbed
the attention of an American label called equal vision. In 2004,
Alexisonfire released another album on Equal vision called watch
out! They kept the same line up, and the same distinct style as
the last album. This style distinguishes Alexisonfire from most
bands because it’s a lot more original from a lot of the bands in
the hardcore/thrash metal category.
The
final band that I want to talk about is Billy Talent. The guys in
this band met in high school in Streets Ville Ontario. They formed
a band in 1993, under the original band name “pezz”. They released
an individual recording and got the attention of Brad “Merlin”
Nelson and Gavin Brown (ex drummer of big sugar and Danko Jones)
they helped record a “demo” type thing called Watoosh in 1998.
Then, in 1999 they changed their name to Billy Talent. In early
2001 they a 4 track E.P. called try honesty. They began to play
live shows again shortly after this, they were described as “Billy
talent isn’t so much a band of four guys as it is a singular sonic
force. It is the musical equivalent of a tsunami tidal wave that
destroys your village, crushes you loved ones and comes back to
laugh at you.”- Unknown Journalist. The try honesty E.P. was
building them a major underground following for them, as was the
CD under the name pezz, Watoosh. All this underground attention
lead to Warner Canada and A&R helping to record a demo produced by
Gavin Brown. In the end Billy Talent signed with Atlantic and
Warner Canada records, after this the release their self titled
debut album “Billy Talent” in September of 2003.
In
conclusion, all I have to say for this is that Canadian metal is
just as good as any other metal.
