Category Archives: Genre

Roll the clock back to 2016 to 2006, Canada got “Weak in the Knees” for young, Toronto-based, newcomer Serena Ryder. Since her breakthrough album If Your Memory Serves You Well Serena has gone on to win six JUNO Awards, a Muchmusic Video Award and a Canadian Film Award. This past May Serena released her sixth, and highest charting, studio album Utopia. 

The legendary Steve Earle paid a visit to the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto last week taking us down “Copperhead Road” to “Guitar Town” where we stopped in to say hello to “My Old Friend The Blues” who lives on “Nowhere Road”.

Finland’s extreme metal superstars Children of Bodom brought their 20 Years Down & Dirty to Ottawa on Wednesday night and things were bound to get crazy!

The progressive death metal band Uncured from New York opened the metal night at the absolutely packed Bronson Centre.

The second to hit the stage was Lost Society from Jyvaskyla, Finland. The young band has an insane amount of positive energy on stage, and their short but solid set was sure to warm up any trash metal fans in the audience with influences from Megadeth and Pantera.

Lost Society at Bronson Centre. Photo by Laura Collins.

The much anticipated Dutch horror metal band Carach Angren entered the stage surrounded by ghostly holograms was sure to be a memorable performance. The haunting synth combined with the heavy guitar riffs and some extreme drumming combined with singer Dennis Droomer’s guttural vocals left more than a few people collecting their jaws off the floor and wanting to see more of the theatrical band.

Carach Angren at Bronson Centre. Photo by Laura Collins.

It’s hard to believe it has been 20 years since Children of Bodom released their debut album Something Wild. The front man Alexi Laiho seems to be in the best shape ever and making his larger than life guitar solos look absolutely effortless.

Children of Bodom at Bronson Centre. Photo by Laura Collins.

The band has been on the road most of the year, touring in Europe in the spring, and bringing in the North American leg of the tour in October, having only two shows left in Canada after the Ottawa show. There was no sign tiredness showing from any of the band members as they put on a show that turned the ecstatic Bronson Centre crowd into a giant mosh pit and a flow of crowd surfers going through the floor for most of the second half of the show.

It has been a while since I’ve seen such a passionate audience, singing almost every song from word to word. Laiho was clearly enjoying his time on stage as well, encouraging the crowd to be louder.

Children of Bodom is one of the biggest bands to come out of the promised land of metal bands, and showed us what it takes to conquer the world, over and over.

Setlist:

1. Deadnight Warrior
2. In The Shadows
3. Needled 24/7
4. Hatebreeder
5. Lake Bodom
6. Warheart
7. Hate Me!
8. Red Light In My Eyes Part 2
9. Downfall
10. Everytime I Die
11. Children of Bodom
12. Hate Crew Deathroll
13. Bed of Razors
14. Kissing the Shadows

Encore:

1. The Nail
2. Towards Dead End

By Laura Collins.

When Lindi Ortega went in search of some quiet last year, the award-winning artist was pleasantly surprised to find a voice she hadn’t heard in some time – her own. Amid sparse, atmospheric production, it’s precisely this voice – a combination of Ortega’s fatalistic perspective expressed with her evocative soprano – that grips your attention on a brand new EP, Til The Goin’ Gets Gone.

Fresh off their Sold Out European tour, Papa Roach are coming back stateside, hitting the road in support of their critically acclaimed ninth studio effort, Crooked Teeth. The tour kicks off on April 5th in Raleigh, NC and runs through May 13th, wrapping up in Corpus Christi, TX. The tour will be hitting twenty five cities featuring special guests and 2018 Grammy Award Nominee Nothing More, with support from Escape the Fate.

Multiple-Grammy award-winning musician Santana is bringing his Divination Tour to 10 Canadian cities next year.

Growing up, the Barenaked Ladies were sort of a staple for Canadian rock radio. Their songs were hook driven, contagious and just peculiar enough that you couldn’t avoid them. And for someone like me that was both a good and bad thing.

The legendary Canadian jazz singer and pianist Diana Krall made a stop in Ottawa on her Turn up the Quiet 2017-18 world tour. Her new album, of the same name, celebrates jazz and the great american songbook and this tour is providing fans with the opportunity to sing along to some of her sultry versions of classics such as L-O-V-E and Isn’t it Romantic.

Now I have to admit, while I like the Arkells, I never jumped on the buzz-worthy bandwagon that a lot of my peers seem to have. Arkells are solid. They bring energy to every show. They even get political sometimes, and their “Ode to the Whistleblower” is a pretty powerful tune. And much like Glorious Sons (who are coming to the K-Rock Centre in February 2018), the commercial radio/university campus buzz/Canadian indie support for them is not only noticeable but frankly hard to miss.

Weeks of video teasers and anticipation finally paid off on Saturday night at Mavericks at the Eagleson CD release party. The Ottawa heavy hitters pushed out a two song EP that is bound to rock your socks off.