Biography
-
Years Active
2008 – present (16 years)
City of Fire is a groove metal band from Vancouver, British Columbia, formed in 2008. Members include vocalist Burton C. Bell of Fear Factory and bassist Byron Stroud from Fear Factory, Strapping Young Lad and Zimmers Hole. City of Fire has so far released a self-titled album, issued in Australia in April 2010 and worldwide in August. The second pressing of the album contained additional bonus tracks, one of which was a cover of the T-Rex song "Children of the Revolution". Several poorly recorded sample portions of their songs were uploaded on the band's MySpace page throughout 2009, often accompanied with video (consisting mostly of studio footage).
The band grew from the one-off reformation in 2008 of Caustic Thought, an early-90s group featuring Stroud, guitarist Ian White and drummer Bob Wagner (and, briefly, Devin Townsend, who replaced Jed Simon). As both Stroud's other main bands Fear Factory and Strapping Young Lad were disbanded or inactive at the time, thought was given to continuing with Caustic Thought and Sho Murray was added to the line-up as a second guitarist. White turned down the vocalist role so Stroud contacted Bell, who accepted. Shortly afterward, Fear Factory re-activated but City of Fire nevertheless completed a self-titled album. In April 2010, the City of Fire album was released in Australia by Stomp Music. It was due for release in other markets in August or September 2010.
In September 2010, City of Fire did its first international tour, supporting Soulfly on a tour of Australia and New Zealand, with Jed Simon (Strapping Young Lad, Zimmers Hole) filling in for White on guitar. Two days after that tour ended, Fear Factory played a week of shows as the major support to Metallica.
A video for the single "Rising" was uploaded by Stomp Entertainment in May, 2010 but has since been taken down. Breaking from the music-video conventions to be expected of typically dark metal fare, "Rising" uses a bright colour scheme with kaleidoscopic imagery.
In January, 2012, City of Fire released a new single through Metal Hammer magazine called "Bad Motivator". The band's new full-length album, Trail Through Fire, will be released in March or April, 2012.
Artist descriptions on Last.fm are editable by everyone. Feel free to contribute!
All user-contributed text on this page is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply.
