Melpomene

“Mush! Stay in line!
You shouldn’t mind stepping over corpses to stay in time
There is no peace,
or incentives aligned
We knew exacltly what effect we would have on your mind.
So jump in the fire,
and embrace the ego
The farther we go down this path the more it knows what we know.
And how to control
the vitriol you have for human inconvenience.”

6 - The writing of this album is very focused on melody, harmony, ambience, and juxtaposition. I originally didn’t plan to have lyrics so I didn’t write leaving space for it. Maybe these decisions went hand in hand or vice-versa. I ended up changing my mind as I felt like the minimalism needed some more lead melodies that could have been guitar or synth but I chose voice to complete it. All of that is to say I didn’t plan to write any songs that were this heavy for this album. It happened out of a pure drive of the rhythm of this song. The intensity in it needed to be conveyed fully rather than holding it back to fit into the album better. This has happened a lot with my vocals as well. I have tried to focus more on singing and emphatic delivery rather than screaming and other forms of metal vocals. But some of these things need that emphasis and I find it better to lean in than try to pull punches, like the final line of Blood & Honey. Is this the ego dissolution I was looking for or a regression into old patterns? I like to think it’s an exploration into a past self with the healthy distance to harness that energy without being engulfed by it. Don’t let the trappings of art and culture dull your edges, art isn’t made to be civil and some messages need to be delivered as the raw, abrasive truth.