Sheavy

Formed in 1993 as the Canadian prog metal outfit Sheavy, the group had originally gone by Green Machine and featured frontman Steve Hennessey alongside guitarists Dan Moore and Sterling Robertson, bassist Paul Grouchy, and drummer Ren Squires. Throughout the remainder of the decade the musicians developed their distinctive metal approach. Their debut release, the 1994 EP Reproduction, also signaled the permanent retirement of the Green Machine name after an American act was discovered to be using it. During the same period they issued Slaves to Fashion, and their icy hard rock began circulating among metal audiences throughout the United States and Europe. A deal with Montreal’s Mag Wheel Records followed, yielding both a cover of Black Sabbath’s “Tomorrow’s Dream” and the 1995 album Blue Sky Mind. Musical and personnel shifts soon occurred when bassist Paul Grouchy departed; Keith Foley took his place in 1996, and the following year the band signed with Rise Above Records, the label run by Lee Dorian of Cathedral and Napalm Death. The latter half of the ’90s found them consistently active, issuing three albums in 1998, the Born Too Late collaboration with Church of Misery, and a 10-inch vinyl project on Frank Kozik’s Man’s Ruin imprint.