VARIOUS ARTISTS – Kitchener-Waterloo Metal Cover Collection

Featuring six bands and a selection of retro metal covers, this compilation is an interesting prospect. None of the featured acts will mean very much to most people living outside Canada – or even anyone living too far outside of Ontario – but in a couple of instances, the bands’ choice of material involves songs that will have spent decades gracing millions of stereos since the 1980s. By choosing a couple of very familiar 80s classics, Invicta and Cathartic Demise both stand a fair chance of picking up a new fan or two via this release – and at the end of the day, that’s what every hard working band wants…and needs. By recycling early nineties death metal, both Aepoch and Raider can seem more marginal, but their featured performances capture some more than reasonable extreme metal chops.

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LIsten: Dream poppers Cathedral Bells release new single ‘Ephemeral’

In October 2019, US dream pop duo Cathedral Bells gave fans a taste of their upcoming album when they released a new single ‘Ephemeral’. The track gave everyone everything they’d hoped for with a hazy throwback to 90s dreampop and shoegaze, all the while still showcasing the band’s gift for a vaguely gothy melody.

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Listen: Cathedral Bells unveil new single ‘Heavy Rain’

During the first quarter of 2019, Cathedral Bells released an enjoyable debut EP, celebrating various retro dreampop and shoegaze moods.  Although taking influence from the 80s, its best songs showed how their chosen genre could still sound relevant and vibrant in the present.

The band has a new full length album due for release on Good Eye Records early next year, but in the meantime, you can listen to a new single ‘Heavy Rain’.

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Watch the new video from Cathedral Bells

In the first quarter of 2019, shoegazers Cathedral Bells released their self-titled debut EP.  Shamelessly retro, its six tracks mined the 90s for inspiration and delivered a listen that was almost guaranteed to please lovers of bands from the 4AD label.

To further promote that enjoyable EP, the band have now shared a fuzzy, low-budget video for one of its more commercial tracks, ‘Cemetery Surf’.

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CATHEDRAL BELLS – Cathedral Bells EP

A dreampop and shoegaze influenced project helmed by Matt Messore (previously of Dear Tracks), Cathedral Bells’ debut EP isn’t exactly shy about recycling musical influences. With strong elements of the more commercial Jesus & Mary Chain, the synthier and more cinematic aspects taken from The Cure and more than a trace of Pale Saints, its six tracks play like the greatest EP not to be released by 4AD Records in 1990. When influences and moods are recycled as well as they are here, originality is more than welcome to take a back seat as Cathedral Bells join Norway’s Spielbergs in heading up a full-on 90s revival.

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