I was fortunate enough to hit up the 2011 edition of HEAVY T.O. and even purchased the tickets before the band were announced. For some reason, I had a feeling it was going to be a good year :-)
Now, for these articles, I usually throw around some opinions and constructive criticisms. I'm going to keep all feelings aside and just report on some need to know facts about these bands to make your experience at the festival a little more enjoyable. If you know of someone going to the festival, pass the articles along and get them just as stoked as we are! For today, AFGM brings you a great up notable (and well established) Canadian act from my neck of the woods in Toronto, ON. These guys bring the ferocity and the aggression to their live performance so all you rockers take note to be at their set at Heavy T.O. AFGM brings you the CANCER BATS!
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Cancer Bats are a hardcore punk band from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They have released four studio albums and six extended plays. The band is composed of vocalist Liam Cormier, guitarist Scott Middleton, drummer Mike Peters and bassist Jaye R. Schwarzer. Cancer Bats take a wide variety of influences from heavy metal sub-genres and fuse them into hardcore punk and punk rock, and include elements of sludge metal, and southern rock. The band has also been compared to metalcore bands of the 1990s like Converge and Hatebreed.
Cancer Bats have come to destroy. Fueled by a burning desire to rage harder, play louder and have more fun than any other band, Cancer Bats mix hardcore, southern metal and punk rock into a lethal rock and roll explosion.
Cancer Bats are:
Liam Cormier - Vocals | Scott Middleton - Guitar | Mike Peters - Drums | Jaye R. Schwarzer - Bass
The band originated in May of 2004 with singer Liam Cormier and guitarist Scott Middleton, former member of Toronto metal band At The Mercy Of Inspiration. The two wanted to form a project that combined their favorite parts of bands like Refused, Black flag, Led Zeppelin and Down, among others. The lineup was rounded out with the addition of Andrew McCracken on bass and Mike Peters on drums.
The four-piece wasted no time writing and recording songs for a self-released EP that saw light in January of 2005 (later reissued on Oct 31 2005 on vinyl by Tragicomedy Records). With hundreds of shows, and many epic tours under their belts, Cancer Bats are eager to party in every city, town and metropolis that will have them. Cancer Bats' long anticipated first full-length record 'BIRTHING THE GIANT' is due out NOW on Distort Records (Canada), Abacus Recordings (US), Hassle Records (UK and Europe) and Shock Records (Australia)!
In March 2, 2010, Cancer Bats released the Sabotage EP. Its name is derived from their cover of the Beastie Boys' song "Sabotage". The band has also shot a music video for the song that premièred on February 16 through the band's MySpace page.
Cancer Bats just dropped an album recently and will be touring in support of this. Well, when they're not touring as Bat Sabbath (haha love it!). Dead Set on Living was released on April 17 through Distort Entertainment in Canada, (April 16, 2012 through Hassle Records in Europe, April 20 through Shock Records in Australia and New Zealand, and April 23 through Metal Blade Records in the United States).
1. RATS (featuring Rob Urbinati)
2. Bricks And Mortar
3. Road Sick
4. Breathe Armageddon
5. Dead Set On Living (featuring Matty Matheson)
6. The Void
7. Old Blood
8. Drunken Physics
9. Bastards (featuring Dez Fafara and Kate Cooper)
10. Rally The Wicked
11. New World Alliance
If you're looking for complexity, tempo changes and blast beats, then this album probably isn't for you. The album reviews have come in mixed, but always noting the open chord chugs and sludge sound that accompanied the album. Its a great album to bang your head to, have a beer and rock out in the sun, which is going to be a great thing for us folk heading to Heavy T.O. I was fortunate enough to catch them on the side stage at Toronto's Edgefest a few years ago and they instantaneously brought missing energy to the stage and got the crowd bumping!
"When it comes right down to it, Dead Set On Living feels distinctly more like hardcore punk this time around, more along the lines of something like Comeback Kid interspersed with a bunch of southern-fried stoner riffs. This may come as a disappointment to some, but worry not, a fair exchange has been made! A simpler approach makes for what is probably Cancer Bats most aggressive album to date. The type of album that will leave you gnawing on half your keyboard whilst using some form of instantaneous osmosis to insert the other half into your skull.
What does this all add up to for you knuckle-draggers who have naught the keen perceptual intellect of one such as myself? Probably not a whole lot, so I'll state things in a succinct language you'll all understand. Dead Set On Living = Bears Mayors Scraps & Bones." -Metal Storm
"Cormier's sassy-mouthed neurosis, flashy riffs that noodle, and deafening snares is DSOL's schtick. Only the production chants louder, even moreso than the quartet's gang vox on “Old Blood” (a number bordering on Every Time I Die's 'calmer' personality). This being the band's third foray with the production duo Eric Ratz and Kenny Luong, DSOL proves that three time's a charm. It covers every footstomping, guitar-twirling hook, edging it into the tightest of metal punk frameworks. 'Breathe Armageddon' and 'Bastards!' capture the most memorable choruses and catchphrases, partly due to Cormier's wayward heathenism and psychedelic guitars. Amidst the album's frills, it lends itself to build on at least one omen-beckoning moment. 'The Void' features that dark, shadowy voice whose mission is to damn everyone to hell.
The album isn't absent of bores, but then again, DSOL isn't structured around flowery melodies. Once 'Rally The Wicked' reaches the line 'falls onto deaf ears' (two seconds in), no better statement could have foreshadowed its hookless, monotone chugging. Even Cormier seems drained of the usual hellraising quips on 'New World Alliance'. 'Time has come for us to make a change,' he resigns half-emphatically, and the ten remaining seconds rest on the laurels of phantom keyboard effects. Regardless, DSOL speaks the dirty rocker punk kvlt language that could put Pantera and Gallows fans side by side." -Absolute Punk
"Somewhere on the road between Red Deer and Chicoutimi, Cancer Bats became one of Canada's best heavy bands. Straddling the worlds of Warped Tour-friendly riffs (they tour with Bring Me the Horizon) and classic Northern thrash (Rob Urbinati of Sacrifice guests on 'R.A.T.S.'), the band have carved out their own niche by avoiding the hyper-specific genre-baiting that's spreading through punk and hardcore — while they may have kick-started their career eight years ago under the influence of a shelf full of Entombed records, they're a borderless wrecking ball today. Drawing from Southern Ontario greats like Sacrifice and Razor, along with sludge, doom and black metal to create their hardened sound, Cancer Bats continue what was started with 2010's Bears, Mayors, Scraps & Bones, the band's previous high-water mark for cohesive originality. There's little about Dead Set on Living that isn't an improvement on the band's past efforts, from the thunderous guitar tones to the frenetic energy pouring out of every song, courtesy of live-off-the-floor recording. Here, "heavy" doesn't just mean a thousand guitar tracks; it's a headspace and a performance style that elevate Cancer Bats to the next level of Canadian metal." -Exclaim Magazine
*CANCER BATS WILL BE PERFORMING ON SATURDAY (THE 11TH) AT THE JAGERMEISTER EAST STAGE FROM 14:15-14:45*
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