TWZ Musicians Of The Month: Chris Wilbur & Dean George

Names: Chris Wilbur and Dean George

Instruments: C.W.- Guitar/Vocals (A.T.A.D.), Bass (E.V.L.), Bass/Guitar/Keyboards (Descending Affirmation), Bass (Final Stage).

                                  D.G.– Guitar/Vocals (A.T.A.D.), Guitar/Vocals (E.V.L.), Everything (Laughing Casket)

Bands: Awake To A Dream, E.V.L. (Chris & Dean), Descending Affirmation (Chris), Laughing Casket (Dean)

Featured musicians for  the months of July and August are team mates Chris Wilbur and Dean George.  This dynamic duo not only rock out together in one band but two,  Awake To A Dream (Prog Rock) and E.V.L. (Strong Rock). These guys are two of the most laid back guys on the scene except of course when it comes time to rock! Very entertaining and supportive of fellow artists. Please take the time to support Chris and Dean‘s projects by clicking on the links below.

Awake To A Dream

E.V.L.

Descending Affirmation

Laughing Casket

Final Stage

Thank you for supporting local music and local musicians. This is the third installment of TWZ Musician Of The Month and we will feature a different musician each month. If you would like to nominate anyone for this honor please contact us with all the necessary information. Above all the candidate must contribute to the originality of the music scene and promote and support others in the scene. Let’s give credit to the people who make our scene stronger!

Ash Richtig,

The Windsor Zene

Laughing Casket revisits electro industrial glory days of 80’s and 90’s with FREE album

If you miss the glory days of industrial clubs from the late ’80s to the early 2000’s, Laughing Casket is here to make you reminisce. Their debut album, Dark Hallways, is now available online as a FREE download.

Laughing Casket is the solo project of Dean George, who also plays in local bands Awake To A Dream, EVL and I believe at least two others. But this project – in which George performs all his own instruments – feels like the most personal.

It’s a straight up homage to electronic music of the past three decades, at times feeling like elements from ’80s Front 242 to ’90s Duran Duran while absorbing and transmutating vibes from bands like Nine Inch Nails, Depeche Mode (he even includes a cover of “Policy of Truth”), Gary Numan and The Cruxshadows. While that may seem a tad schizophrenic, it’s actually a fairly cohesive journey using all the right components.

At times George’s voice sounds like its wavering from Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran to a young Trent Reznor and is arguably the weakest point of the album. Not saying his voice is terrible – it works in almost every instance – but it just seems like it’s missing something. It’s like listening to Trent Reznor’s voice on Pretty Hate Machine compared to how strong it got by the time he’d hit The Fragile. You can just hear that once he gets more comfortable in his voice (and how to achieve how he really wants it to be heard), he’ll be that much better.

With that being said, it’s definitely worth the download. There are some pretty decent songs here and seeing as it’s his first release, I’m excited to see how this project progresses and matures.

It appears that George is planning on taking Laughing Casket live at some point, as he’s assembled a live band featuring some of his band mates to showcase the songs of this recording.

With the amount of heavy metal, folk, punk and rock bands dominating Windsor’s music scene of late, it’s refreshing to see someone take a legitimate shot at tackling a music genre so often overlooked in cities the size of Windsor.