By the time Ottawa technical death metal band Killitorous wrapped up the Eastern leg of their current Canadian tour at the end of November, guitarist Aaron Homma said it’s already their most successful tour ever.
“We haven’t done a headlining tour in a while, it’s been about two years, so the response we were expecting was hit or miss, really, but it’s been crazy the amount of turnout,” Homma said. “And we’ve also had the band Blood of Christ with us, which was really cool. They’ve been around for like 20 years so for me it was really cool bringing a band that I grew up with on tour with us.”
The tour resumed earlier this week in Winnipeg and on Monday, Dec. 17 the band plays the Cambie in Nanaimo. Also performing that night are Nanaimo’s Evilosity, Victoria’s Liberatia and Vancouver’s Blackwater Burial.
Homma suspects Killitorous’ lack of touring, combined with a “revamped” live show and the band’s long awaited sophomore album’s March due date may have led to the increased turnout. Homma said they’ve been playing some new material on the tour and one of those songs is “just kicking people’s butts.”
Homma said the decision to move bassist Marc Roy to a third guitar position has resulted in a live show that more closely matches the band’s sound on record.
“Now everything’s got these massive true sounding harmonies from the album because there’s a lot of things we couldn’t do live with just two guitar players that are on the album,” he said. “Like really thick backing to the solos, a lot of tri-harmonies, things like that were just impossible to do with two guitar players.”
Killitorous’ next album is called The Afterparty, and Homma describes it as an extension of their first record, 2014’s Party, Grind. Homma said he wrote the album over the last six years.
He added that the Cambie show will be Killitorous’ Nanaimo debut. He said he’s hoping the hype from the eastern half of the tour continues as the band goes west.
“We’re not a big death metal band, we’re just still fighting out there to get some recognition,” he said. “So it’s cool that the tour’s been doing well and I hope it transposes onto the western side of Canada as well. I’m hoping that with the fact that we’ve never played there, maybe more people will come out and check us out.”
WHAT’S ON … Killitorous and guests perform at the Cambie on Monday, Dec. 17. Doors at 7 p.m., bands at 8 p.m. Admission $12 at the door. 19-plus show.
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