I keep trying to drill it into the heads of my pals in American-based touring bands that there is a treasure trove of metal goodness ready to welcome them (and come to their shows and buy their merch) east of Montreal. Alas, for whatever reason, routing will rarely take a band past the island where you can’t make a right on a red light and into the wilds of Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and, for the more adventurous, Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island. Before anyone scoffs at the notion, think about that when you’re staring out the window at the wastelands of Kansas, Nebraska or Iowa or bemoaning the dearth of cool places to play west of Denver before you get to California, Washington or Oregon.
The eastern Canadian metal scene is like the Toyota Camry of metal scenes: compact and reliable. And one of the longer running more recognizable names are Orchid’s Curse. Formed 18 years ago in the Dartmouth-Halifax area of Nova Scotia, the band has issued six releases since 2006 — their latest being an EP titled The Decay which is released tomorrow and a stream of which we’re running below — and have won multiple local music and recognition awards over the course of their history. Additionally, vocalist Josh Hogan is known for his involvement in Red Tentacle “a multi-facet music solutions company offering a variety of services for independent artists, music industry professionals and small businesses” and is a well-known Halifax concert promoter.
The Decay sees the band taking steps to consciously be as stylistically diverse as possible with each of the six songs on offer, from slow and low to fast and furious, from melodic death metal and thrash to late ’90s/early ’00s Hydra Head/Relapse metallic hardcore and epic bright-eyed sludge.
Here’s what they had to say about their latest work: “We are elated to finally be releasing The Decay to the masses. Writing for this album started before the pandemic and we are glad the time to release it is finally here. One positive is that with the shutdowns we had a lot of extra time to spend refining these songs to ensure it was the most mature and competent release to date. With each new album we always try to continue to progress and up the ante musically and artistically. We all feel really confident in these songs and this release as a whole.”
Check it out. Links below.
