One night in early February 2007, I made the half hour trip down to the Galaxy Club to check out a six band hard rock / metal show. Two of the bands, Reverent and With These Words, I had seen before. The others, however, were new to me and I'd never heard of any of them. This wasn't entirely unusual, as I was still new to the local music scene and always on the lookout for new bands.

So on this particular Saturday night, I had come to the Galaxy Club with a friend who introduced me to Chase Ditto, the new vocalist for a band called Mourning Fury. He and Chase had gone to school together, and after the introduction was made I was interested to hear what the band would sound like. To be sure, I wasn't expecting too much. Mourning Fury was, after all, a metal band, and I'd largely given up on metal bands after suffering through years of cookie cutter Pantera knockoffs and monosyllable-grunting vocalists playing what were essentially the same lackluster, uninspired songs over and over again. Metal musicians, it seemed, had forgotten about melody, forgotten about song structure, forgotten, essentially, about everything that makes a song a song as opposed to a bunch of riffs strewn together with unintelligible vocals and obsessive double bass-heavy drumming.

So, what can I say? I was favorably impressed. Mourning Fury was the embodiment all that a good metal band should be - incorporating true song structure, excellent playing and musicianship, a good stage show, and, above all, intelligent, intelligible lyrics and melodies. I followed the band from that day forward, to shows at the Darkside Lounge, Curtain, the Ridglea Theater, Tomcats, and the Skillman Street Pub, where they played their last ever show on May 3, 2008. Chase would later go on to become vocalist for Fallen South following the departures of vocalists Shelton and original vocalist Brady, formerly of 3/4 Ton.

Mourning Fury's discography includes a two song demo CD released in early 2007, an mp3 released exclusively through MySpace, and one full-length EP, The Far Side of Yesterday, released in January 2008 and available through the band's MySpace page.