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3 Inches of Blood/Saviours @ Amigos, Saskatoon, SK, October 26, 2009

Based on the merits of Here Waits Thy Doom and Accelerated Living, a pair of first-rate albums released this fall, 3 Inches of Blood and Saviours finally feel truly on top of their game. With two new records conveniently out at the same time, not to mention two very compatible sounds, the pairing of these acts for 3IOB’s cross-Canada tour was a no-brainer, and as they hit Saskatoon two weeks into their whopping 14 date run from Halifax to Revelstoke, everyone was firing on all cylinders.

Adrien Begrand recaps the recent Saskatoon stop by 3 Inches Of Blood and Saviours. Naysayers beware!

The Cleansing: Poisoned Legacy

Poisoned Legacy is a fine addition to the Danish death metal corpus (mortale…apologies for the horrid pun). It is well-performed musically and quite enjoyable in short bursts, but it lacks the consistently dynamic songwriting required to hold the attention for its duration.

Gwar, Beefcake the Mighty, Oderus Urungus

GWAR Meets The Six Year Old!

When it was announced that GWAR would be doing an in-store at London ON’s ZEUS CD Plus record store I asked my son Kieran if he’d like to go and get his photo taken with the band. I thought it would make for a neat little feature here on Hellbound.ca. Some photos of the event can be seen within.

Gaza: He Is Never Coming Back

Gaza’s He Is Never Coming Back is a tumultuous collection of powerful, almost too emotional songs that are heavy – not for simply being dudes from Salt Lake City who want to show who has the biggest balls on the block, but simply because they have something very powerful to day.

Noctis Metal Fest 2009: The Concerts

Part two of Hellbound.ca’s coverage of the Noctis Metal Conference and Festival that happened earlier this year in Calgary, Alberta, in this segment Rob Hughes reviews the musical performances of the festival with a recap of the two nights worth of gigs. The first night featured sets by Ares Kingdom, Slough Feg and Novembers Doom, while the Saturdaynight included Aura Noir, Destroyer 666, Suffocation and Cynic amongst others.

Sonata Arctica/Borealis @ The Music Hall, London ON, Oct 15, 2009

Having recently played a shortened set in Toronto under Dragonforce, Sonata Arctica returned to play an exclusive headlining show – the only one on their current North American tour. With their recent release of The Days of Grays, new songs were the main focus of the evening. TDoG continues in the direction that Unia started – gone are the galloping riffs, and the sing-along choruses, but if anyone was expecting those, they’ve been out of touch with the band for awhile now.

Adam Wills reviews and photo archives the recent London ON live performance by Finnish power metallers Sonata Arctica.

Scar Symmetry: Dark Matter Dimensions

The main problem with this band is after their storming debut album, the last few albums (including this new one) sound like the album they made two albums ago. It is nowhere near being a bad album at all, it’s just I have heard this same CD like three times now.

Baroness: Blue Record

Blue Record is a forward-thinking pastiche of all points of sludge/stoner/doom light as informed by a bunch of toothless, Smokey Mountain ban-jer pickers, the Thin Lizzy fanclub, the Melvins irreverence, Converge’s 21st Century output and Queen’s penchant for mini rock operas.

Count Raven: Mammons War

Mammons War is kick-ass Doom metal offering, combining elements from several genres; Dan “Fodde” Fondelius has done a fine job creating that. A very respectable and a pretty cool album to check out.