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The second coming of Fall of Earth
Edmonton’s hybrid-metal heroes Fall of Earth return to play Cranbrook
By Ferdy Belland
“Our first show ever in British Columbia was in Cranbrook this past January, and it went so well,” says Alex Rye, the dynamic and charismatic lead vocalist for Edmonton’s highly acclaimed hybrid-metal quartet Fall of Earth. “Since then, we’ve been touring more and more through B.C. Our show in Vancouver was very fun and it was great to open up doors and establish an audience on the West Coast. Now we’re getting geared up for opening up for Allegaeon, which is exciting as anything!”
It’s not your average Canadian band that can secure opening-support slots for popular American extreme-metal acts as Metal Blade recording artists Allegaeon, but then again Fall of Earth is certainly not your average Canadian band.
Having formed as a resist-the-pandemic project in 2020, Fall of Earth (consisting of Rye and his virtuosi bandmates – guitarist Brody Bauer, drummer Brendan Meilleur, and bassist Aaron Winklmeier) have been standing audiences on their startled heads with locktight musicianship, intelligent and gripping songwriting prowess, and a unique blending of different stylistic elements of various metal genres, which does not make the band contrived, but unique.
And the band is eager to return to the stage at the Cranbrook Hotel Pub on Friday, May 26 to unleash not just a new clutch of powerful songs, but a full three-set evening showcasing the depth and breadth of the band’s talents.
“The shows with Allegaeon are the kickoff to our six-week tour across many, many provinces,” says Rye. “There’s a string of shows going from Vancouver to Winnipeg, and then a lot of Ontario dates after that. Then we head for Montreal and other dates in Quebec, and then New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. We’re very excited. Our first national tour, and hopefully it won’t be the last one!”
It probably won’t be Fall of Earth’s last tour by a long shot, not with how fast and how large the career snowball is rolling for these singular talents. The band’s second album From the Ashes was released on April 21 and has already been gathering much enthusiastic critical praise.
“We had our big album release show in Edmonton, and it was wonderful to get all that hometown support,” says Rye. “We held the show at the Starlite Room, which is one of the city’s prime venues, and it was just packed tight to capacity. Just a wicked show all around! We shared the bill with a bunch of local Edmonton bands who we love playing with, like Stuka and Myiasis, and that was just a Super Banger of a show.
“When we were out in Vancouver, we were very lucky to land a show at the Roxy on Granville Street – the Roxy is one of the longstanding legendary live venues in Vancouver, and they don’t normally host metal shows, so it was cool to sort of sneak our way in there and hit that stage! And the audience dug what we were doing – the Roxy management advertised the event very thoroughly as a dedicated metal show, so everyone in attendance knew what to expect. It was a very successful show. And the local talent who were also on the bill were absolutely stellar.”
“We’re booked to play at the Loud As Hell festival out in Drumheller,” says Rye of the nationally famous metalfest organized by the spunkily motivated former Cranbrooker Geoff Bourrie.
“This year’s lineup is just sick – Arrival of Autumn, Necronomicon, the Convalescence, Jungle Rot, Narcotic Wasteland, the list goes on and on. After the summer, we’re planning on hitting the road again for an even longer tour which will take us through the fall. This current tour is our longest tour to date, but the stint we’ll be undertaking in the fall will rival this one! The band is transforming into a pack of endless road-hounds.”
And Fall of Earth’s ambition isn’t ending at the opposite coasts, or the 49th Parallel.
“To put in all into perspective: 2024 is going to blow it all out of the water,” says Rye. “We’re going to take Fall of Earth to international audiences. For a young band like us to try and get into the United States these days is pretty damn pricey, seeing how Homeland Security keeps pressuring the Musician’s Union to jack up the rates for the necessary work visas. So we’re looking into touring Europe and Japan – which is where we’ll find most of our audience for our style of hybrid metal anyway.
“We definitely have the US on our radar for later on down the road, but there’s just nothing lined up yet. We’re trying to join forces with the band Living Dead Girl and tour together, which would be a blast.”
“We’re definitely writing slower than we have in the past, what with how we’re getting busier and busier with live-concert activity,” says Rye. “It does feel somewhat weird for us to not have as much time to song write as we did before, but we are still writing new material. We’re not stagnating by any stretch of the imagination. We’ve written a few tracks already which are earmarked for the third album, and we’re aiming to take time between the end of this tour and the start of the next tour and find a remote cabin somewhere where the four of us can hide from the world and just enjoying a working artist’s retreat and spend a few weeks focused solely on writing and keep the creative juices flowing.
“We always talk about our first show in Cranbrook,” says Rye. “Seriously, our show last January is still one of my favorites we’ve done over the past year. There was a real magic in the air for us, driving all the way from Edmonton on the snowy highways and finally rolling into town – and the crowd we received that night were all electrified and eager to hear us and see us.
“The people of the East Kootenay are just so nice and so gracious to be around. We really enjoyed our time there, and we’re looking forward to coming back and seeing familiar faces and new faces for this next show!”
Fall of Earth take the stage at the Cranbrook Hotel Pub (719 Baker Street) this coming Friday May 26 for a special three-set evening that’s guaranteed to (aye-aye oh!) shake your foundations.
Admission: $10 advance (tickets available at the Pub during regular business hours), $15 at the door. Doors open 8 p.m., Showtime 9:30 p.m.
Please visit www.fallofearthband.com for all your Fall of Earth needs. Thank You for Supporting Live Music in Our Community.
Lead image: Fall of Earth (L-R): drummer Brendan Meilleur, guitarist Brody Bauer, vocalist Alex Rye, bassist Aaron Winklmeier. Photos submitted
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