These guys were amazing! I always found they were the equivalency to Morning Again in Canada. Unfortunately they were always evolving and changing members which were slowing them down and preventing them from getting as big as they should of been. Had this band not been hit by ill omens, they would of been as big as Chokehold.
This all started in late 1993 when Mike Charette (guitar) founded Unheard. They would play with different members during this time but would it would result in having Mike on guitar, Ian Pryde on vocals) and Ryan Hunter on bass. Unheard was a different band but by the time Jeff Almond (guitar) came in the picture in May, that’s when things started to shift and they changed name to Ignorance Never Settles. At this time the band was influenced by fellow Canadian stars as Chokehold and Grade as well as Unbroken and Mean Season. Around the fall of 1994 the band went in a studio which was located on the grounds of Sheridan College. They would record their first demo and 100 copies were made on tape. The band started playing shows, mostly staying in Ontario, and would get to know As We Speak a great deal from playing shows together.
By summer of 1995, and after another demo tape, “Hate Machine” which featured six songs also recorded at Sheridan, they had decided to do a split with As We Speak, and originally went to Rumenal Records Studio to record the song “Silence”. The sound came out so bad that it was completely scrapped and never used. So they headed to Signal 2 Noise studio to record eight songs, one of which would be “Silence” and be used for the split, which was released on Paul Bright’s Winter Records. A first tragedy would happen for the band during this time, Matt and Jeff would both quit at the same time. Thankfully they quickly found Kevin Finlayson to replace on drums. In the last week of 1995 the band would return to Signal 2 Noise to record four new songs in studio, and combined with the eight previously recorded ones would make up their debut album “Cycles of Consumption” (a bonus track featured an appearance by Chris Gray on vocals and the artwork was created by Kyle Bishop and photographed by Jo-Anne Sanders). Cycles was released at the end of March 1996 on Upheaval Records, and only 1000 copies were made. A vinyl version of the album was planned but never happened due to the bands impossibility to tour. Shirts were however made, and ended up mostly being sold in Europe. Kyle Bishop from Grade actually took the majority of the CDs with him when they toured the states and sold every single one of them.
Some of the buyers were people from labels that are now pretty big, and back in the summer of 1996 INS was approached by such labels as Trustkill Records and Eulogy Recordings. They were asked by Josh Grabelle to send in demos of the new material written. After going through a change of “re-inventing the wheel” with influences by Bloodlet, Neurosis, Coalesce and Machine Head, they would record demos of “Tower of Silence” and “Demon Epic” in September 1996 at Signal 2 Noise, but this took so long to do that their luck seemed to have passed by… Only twenty of those tapes were made and most were sent in to record labels or given away to close ones. Not long after this Finlayson would join Grade (his dream since he first heard them) but was nice enough to provide a replacement named Brendan Munn.
After having gone through two more guitarists (Brett and Christian McMaster), the band finally settled with RJ Larente. With this solidified line-up, the band went to Blue Tilt Studio (aka Cat Piss Studio) to record four new demos of songs which were intended to find a new label to work with and release a full length the band had in mind. One Day Savior was interested with the material right away and offered to do a split with Incision (from St. Louis, Missouri). The newly recorded version of “Tower of Silence” was used on “Within the Vast Realms of Dying”, even if the band preferred the original demo recording. Munn and Larente left in July of 1998 to focus on their other band Avarice and INS went under hiatus until January of 1999. Norman Wellbanks was welcomed on drums and Mark Regliszyn on second guitar. Belgian label Firestorm Records had been in touch with the band since late 1998, and after the reformation they decided to finally get a release out. In spring of 1999 the remaining three songs from the recording session were released as a split with Mark of the Devil. The band would once again be hit by set backs when one of its oldest member, Ryan Hunter, decided to focus only on his masters degree. Matt Rennick (who had been filling in for Ryan during the last two years) would end up playing bass until the death of the band.
They started planning a big summer tour which would take them all across the east coast, with This Day Forth. The tour never happened, but in October of 1999 the band went for the last time in Signal 2 Noise studio. Five songs were recorded (one of which would once again featured Chris Gray on vocals). They played their last show at the 1999 Rocktoberfest in Oakville. The band immediately took another hiatus break, which they were to never return from again.
Ignorance Never Settles Partial Discography
i am missing a few demos, so if you have them, id really appreciate getting hooked up!
missing: First Demo (Fall 1994), Second Demo “Hate Machine” (6 songs, Spring 1995), Label Promo (2 songs, Fall 1996)
