Alstadt - 2 albums (2017)

[Note: As far as I know, Alstadt's music on the following albums are still the property of Vision of God Records, therefore the links provided are to their page. If the material ever becomes my property again in future, I'll make free download links available (provided I'm able).]

"Alstedt" - original band name/logo, but I forgot, and misspelled it... thus we have:

(Alstadt - "Rest these Woods in Solitude")

While this is obviously a Christian Metal project, I had been listening to a lot of Pagan Metal at this time. Additionally, my interpretation of Christianity was closer to Gnostic, and nature-based (or nature-reverent). 

It was around this time that my drinking habit began to develop, following some medical problems that occurred in early 2017. Now that I think about it, this must have been recorded exactly at the time everything started to take a turn for the worse.

"Rest these Woods..." is a pretty straightforward affair, fast, raw, aggressive. Just a speedy purge of emotion, conceptualized within a Christian framework.
The songs themselves were pretty much improvised.

I guess it wasn't so well received, but I'm still rather fond of it, as well as the next album.  

(Alstadt - "Climes of Northern Sorrow" cover photo by Mary Cox O'Ney)

Unlike with its predecessor, the songs on "Climes..." were written. Well, at least more written than improvised. Even though each song was made in one sitting, more work went into constructing the riffs, and overall composition. I actually sat down and wrote lyrics for this one. It's rare, but it does happen.
Cover photo was taken by Mary Cox O'Ney, and used with her permission. I told her I would credit her, but I may have forgotten to include that information when I relayed it to Duane from VoG Records.

The music is different from the previous one too. For one thing, there's a marked influence of Grind and Punk Rock. All in all, a very interesting album.
The crowning achievement, the one track you should listen to if you don't listen to anything else, 

is "Hope for the Healing," the next to last track on the album:

("Hope for the Healing," courtesy of VoG)

Buy from Vision of God Records:

Alstadt - "Rest these Woods in Solitude"

Alstadt - "Climes of Northern Sorrow"

Devotee (2018)

Devotee is a project from 2018 that I did four albums with, all in the same year. My music is often an outlet for, and a reflection of, a lot of emotions, trouble, and spiritual fluctuations that I may be going through at any particular period of time.

Devotee is no different, in this regard, tagged as 'Hipster Black Metal,' for the lulz of it.

Spiritually, my disenchantment with Christianity was reaching an apex following three years of uncertainty, doubt, and speculations causing me to research avenues of comparative-religious study with which I was not previously familiar. This really deserves its own post, but just to give an idea of what I was going through with these projects/albums.

(the first two)

Within the music, aesthetic, and imagery of Devotee's first two albums, influences can be detected from Left-Handed Islamic ideation, gnostic glorifying of the Demiurge (reverse-Gnosticism), and Pre-Islamic Paganism.

"Sacred Visions" is full of raw hymns to the Demiurge. The idea behind this was a backwards approach to early/medieval Christian Gnosticism, where it was proposed that the god of the Old Testament was the Demiurge, unworthy of worship, and identifiable as "Satan."
My reasoning was that, were this true (by their own logic), then worshipping the Abrahamic God was akin to devil worship. Sarcastically then, I devised "Sacred Visions" as a rejection of this concept, which in turn promoted a 'Left-handed' interpretation of what would otherwise have been seen as a 'Right-handed' one.
Simply put, I flipped it on 'em.

"Faith of the Ancients," is probably my favorite Devotee album. The final production might not be great, but I purposely left it as it was because the mastering tools at my disposal took something away from the music, while still giving it a 'fuller' sound.
Since I don't know what I'm doing (learning as I go, with obsolete equipent), I just left it raw, and I think it sounds better that way.  

(the last two)

Things take a sharp turn to the left (no pun intended) with the release of "Grey Metal," which almost shares more common territory with Noise music. Catastrophically atonal, fraught throughout with dense, relentless anxiety, and suffocating esoterism, it is probably uneasy listening.

The closest comparison that comes to mind is if you had Blut Aus Nord's "Mort" attempting to interpret Leviathan's "The First Sublevel of Suicide." Whether or not this is apparent to anyone else, or only in my personal sense of delusion, I have no idea.
"Grey Metal," ideologically is meant as an excercise in balance between Right-hand and Left-hand, with regard to spiritual practice. It is a merging of the two realms (throwing accusations of heresy to the wind), and an audial example of how this feels to me, due to what I was experiencing at the time personally (anxiety, health issues, habitual drinking, spiritual conundrum causing synthetic syncretism, emotional imbalance seeking equilibrium, among other things).
It is what happens when you mix Christianity with it's opposite, through a bridge of Islam. The (only temporary) grey limbo that ensues is captured on this release. It's a necessary, albeit uncomfortable stop on one's journey toward truth and understanding.

"Second Blood," is the ironically titled fourth album. This album has more obvious punk influences, and there's even a 'Black Metal Reggae' song. The alcohol was flowing free on this album, evident in its Punk Rock nihilism, and it's "idgaf" ethos. The vocals are mixed way too loud, of warbled, drunken ramblings and urgent nonsense are screeched into the void.
Strangely, this album has seen more popularity and success than the others, I think.

Download at 'Name Your Price' on Bandcamp (free or donation):

 https://devotee.bandcamp.com/ 

Mediafire links: 

"Sacred Visions"

"Faith of the Ancients" 

"Grey Metal"

Sun Won't Rise (2012-2018)

Back in 2012, after years of being limited in available equipment an/or technology wherewith to create music at my leisure, I finally got a cheap PC, installed a demo version of FL Studio, Audacity freeware, and plugged my guitar directly into the computer (line-in).
This newfound freedom to experiment musically, in combination with amphetamine/2c-b abuse and benzodiazepine withdrawal, gave birth to Sun Won't Rise. I guess one could say I used this project as practice, or a test. Once I became more familiar with the overall process, I would eventually decide that I should be doing music with more purpose behind it.

It should be noted that, despite my drug abuse/withdrawal, I was struggling to quit and get my life in a more stable place. For that reason, there is overlap between personal issues behind all of these projects, no matter what their intended spiritual focus (or lack thereof, in some cases) may be.

 

(photo taken by Jewel, in Sawyerville QC @ my dad's place circa 2012) 

It may not be much of a surprise, to those who know about me, that the first three SWR albums were recorded within days of one another, and all intended for different projects. It occurred to me that the sound was similar enough, yet the music diverse enough, to give the impression of a single project with an evolved progression across albums.
I took some time trying to find a name to unify them under. I spent days (no lie) high on amphetamines, scouring the dictionary, looking at words and definitions, noting the ones that I found interesting.
None of them were satisfactory, they all sucked. At some point, in my conundrum, I looked at the sun shining outside, and with typical Black Metal sarcastic cynicism I blurted out "Sun won't RISE!" as a joke. It made me laugh, but upon reflection I thought it sounded pretty cool, so it worked.
I used the artist name 'Michelle Massacre,' which was a name I had been using since 2010 post-AnHero.

Music on the first three albums was entirely improvised, essentially me making up riffs on the spot as I recorded guitar over the drum tracks. Vocals were screeched into a cheap microphone, consisting of me just 'throat-growling' morbid crap and overlaying the vocals with a bit of distortion afterwards. I wasn't able to do my regular Black Metal screams and wails (due to living in an apartment).

Not wanting the neighbors to call the cops for suspicion of violent murder-victims screaming, I developed a method whereby I could growl softly into the mic, but modify it later to make it sound like loud screams. This was done simply by adding a bit of distortion and echo/reverb, and finding the desired tone.

At this period, I was spontaneously creating albums left-and-right. Being constantly high on speed alternately with 2c-b, I'd often create about 2-3 albums per week.
Boom. That's an album. "I feel like playing guitar." Boom. That's another album. "I've been up for 5 days straight."

(photo from 2012, taken by (now wife) Jewel in Montreal QC, wearing both cross and baphometic sigil)

Eventually, I decided that my music should be used to greater purpose, rather than just give vent to my strange whims and nihilistic emotions. Ever striving to strive toward a spiritual focus, I put SWR aside in order to resurrect Rotting Serpent.

Many albums (and several projects) later, I brought SWR back in 2018 with the album "Not Here, Not Now." (Note: I honestly had no idea there was a Swans release of the same title, I've never heard it, nor listened to them... although, I've heard things.)
This album, while showing a continuity from the raw post-black sound of 2012's "Hang In There Baby!", undoubtedly also has better production and sound quality. It even sounds like the songs were written in advance (which they were not, they almost never are).

Musically, it's probably best described as a mixture of Post-Black Metal, and Sludgy Doom Rock riffs. At this time, I was influenced by Jesu and 'slowcore' music in general.
Instead of amphetamines, or other drugs, 2018 saw me developing an alcohol problem as a response to certain physical and emotional ailments (which I've been battling pretty much all my life). I hope some of that pain translates into my music at least, making some thought-provoking art, and possibly turning something negative into something positive..... or just negative. Whatever.

(photo taken by Jewel circa 2014, rare meetup and jam session with former bandmate and longtime friend Rémi Bilodeau)

Finally, the Metal-Archives Bio has been outdated for years. 'White Zion PRDKSHNZ' hasn't existed for a long time, and my 'girlfriend' is now my wife. It was a long road from 2012-2018, strange and interesting. It continues to be, even now, and that is fine.

Download from Bandcamp 'Name Your Price' (free or donation):

https://sunwontrise.bandcamp.com/

Mediafire links: 

"Ballads to Beckon the End" (2012)

"Hang In There, Baby!" (2012)

"Not Here, Not Now" (2018)