Back in 1994 Cynic released their debut album, Focus, one of my favorite albums of all time, and one of the albums most important to the development of intelligent progressive metal. They are often credited as being the first band to successfully merge jazz fusion with death metal, and are without a doubt some of the most virtuosic musicians to ever grace the metal scene. But as is all too common for bands that make challenging and truly progressive music, the importance of what they had done was not understood until many years later.

Call me an old fogey, but I’ve been attending hardcore and pseudo-hardcore shows for close to a decade, spent many sweaty nights at L’X and Café L’Inco during my time, and have come to watch the scene somewhat closely, and during that time, I’ve noticed the degeneration of “the scene” (as the kids refer to it as) into a muddled mess of wayward children who care more about their bandanas and cool kicks (often looking like a terrible biker gang than true fans of the music they’re there to listen to.) Although this has been happening for years, Thursday night served as a reminder of the disintegration of a once-enjoyable genre of music ruin

On May 21st, seasoned metal veterans Testament played to a packed crowd at Metropolis, with openers Unearth.

Every Wednesday, CJLO's resident comic dorks bring you the best in whats new and good in the world of comic books. However, since this is our first feature, we figured we'd throw you a bone with a ten point breakdown of the Marvel Comics Universe circa 2009 that may be necessary to understand some of the finer points of our rants...so, without further ado..

1. There was a Civil War amongst the Heroes that divided them into two factions.

      a. Registered Heroes recognized by the US government  - Mighty Avengers