Presenting the first Eryth album of 2024: Fermi

I wanted to create something of a 'typical' post-metal album after the recent diversions, as well as experimenting with the idea of mapping existing songs movements and tempos to see if I could capture some of that live band essence that I feel I miss. I took some of my favourite 'post' tracks and mapped the bpm, energy levels, types of riffs etc, and added my own riffs and ideas to flesh them out. In some cases I have adapted entire riffs because they fit so well with my existing ideas. I ended up with four long songs and one behemoth, and cognisant I'm never going to have 90 minutes to sit through a single album ever again, this project has been split into two releases. The cover is an evening shot of trees in the garden, blended with an image of deep space.

I also wanted to experiment with some methods I'd not used in a while: clean vocals, clean guitars, more song dynamics and noise as an 'instrument'. As it turns out I can't really sing in tune and my clean playing is surprisingly poor! Nonetheless, I have had a go, ably assisted by studio trickery and MIDI. I used various YouTube videos of 'the spookiest space sounds... EVER', run through noise machines to create the noise textures throughout, many of which ended up sounding like wind on a distant planet or alien language. The guitar/bass sonic template here is the 'Kanli sound', which gives a grinding propulsion without too many guitar tracks, offset by a few different types of new (for Eryth) clean lines for contrast

True to the post-metal theme, this album is about space and our place within it, ie the Fermi Paradox. However, the tracks explore a more philosophical take on any solution, namely: what are we meant to do if there isn't any life out there? Considering the general state of humanity, my own practical plan is to look inside and live our best lives here and now, finding solace inside ourselves, and not hoping for some extra terrestrial saviour - a sort of optimistic nihilism. As a result, I used a combination of dirty chromatic doom riffs for despair, tempered by more melodic lines and leads for optimism, largely composed using 'Tintinabulli' techniques to emulate an otherworldly spiritual aura. Writing lyrics was by far the hardest part, and something I've now realised I am not really cut out for - future Eryth lyrics may well be in the 'wordless nonsense' vein!

Nihil

Hewing perhaps rather too closely to 'Bohemian Grove' by Cubic Space Division, this is a similarly structured track with a classic post-metal dynamic range. The ending riff is adapted from 'Stabwound' by Necrophagist - simplified and slowed down to form something triumphant/defiant, and is echoed throughout the track in solos or faint lead lines. The enveloping noise at the end signals the nihilistic despair of the lyrics, which deal with the realisation that there is nothing out in the cosmos, nor is there within us, and a fixation on either is holding us back.


Nadir

This is heavily inspired by Pink Floyd's 'Careful with that Axe, Eugene' - I did however tempo-map to a live cover which had more of the vibe I was looking for. The leads are mostly-improvised around a single scale, bringing in some Gilmourian licks, or at least my poor attempts to copy. A challenge here was to tweak the drums to fit the gentler, jazzier parts required - I have built up a huge library of metal drum MIDI grooves, but not much in the way of laid-back smoother bluesy parts. The tempo builds nicely to a frenzied pace, while the anguished screams of the nihilist form into some catharsis.

Expanse

Taking an opening from a now long-abandoned 'folk' track in 11/8 I had composed, this track then leads into a relatively typical verse/chorus structure with an ambient interlude (lots of space sounds here, taken from a satellite entering Jupiter's magnetosphere) and finally another triumphant outro riff accompanied by a soaring ending solo which burns out into more noise. The lyrics are more optimistic, in that they represent an embrace of nihilism and the freedom this brings. The structure is ripped off from 'Birds' by Elephant Tree, including the first heavy riff, I hope they won't mind. The clean verse is ripped off from Rosetta's typical take on picked chords with masses of reverb.

Veil

Very clearly a rip off of 'Feedbacker' by Boris, this one is a three-parter which builds to repeated roaring conclusions. I added in various 'space noises' as either textural background or upfront Merzbow-esque noise, as well as whispered lines and guitar-based noises. The main descending arpeggio comes from a YouTube video on the Fermi Paradox, which while cliched, does work amidst the swirling chaos and majesty of the 'big riffs'. I wanted the clean picked lines to stand out of their own, so opted for a ChatGPT-assisted monologue rather than sung vocal lines - they variously described the issues with making contact, and perhaps the benefits of not having to expose ourselves to extra-terrestrials who might look on us with contempt. ChatGPT did however generate some rather poetic lines about alien life hidden 'behind the veil', meaning our 'fragments of reason' might fade away like 'ripples' on a pond, which inspired much of the albums lyrical theme. Ultimately the message here is that what we have is worth protecting, and that should be enough.