This year's Osheaga music festival went off without a hitch.... well, with the exception of a headlining act cancelation, torrential rain and ankle deep mud. This didn’t stop concert goers from flocking to the island however, with Saturday night capping at a whopping 30,000 spectators.  Having Coldplay round out the evening will have that effect.

On Saturday, January 17th, I took the 55 bus through the frigid, negative-something weather, and wound up in front of Metropolis to be greeted by a swarm of black t-shirted, long haired fans -the tell tale signs of any self-respecting metal show.

Theory Of A Deadman is no one's favourite band. I'm glad I got that statement out of the way at the onset of this review, as I feel like it accurately describes the concert experience I recently flung myself into.

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.

Ah, Earthless, the perfect soundtrack for a frigid February night. All precise, pummeling, instrumental rock, erring more on the bong hit rather than acid trip side of psychedelic. Trekking out to see them somewhere in the wilds of Brooklyn in 2007 is one of my fondest memories from that year's CMJ festival, and I knew that if this show would be anything like that one, I was in for a treat.