Io, Priestess Impure (black/space metal)

[CTN]

Haven't written a metal song in over a year. Been so focused on my blues album. But I got that 33 year old X2N a couple days ago and I'm SO SO SO happy with how it sounds. It's basically my ultimate metal pickup. It sounds amazing through my rig and sounds even better recorded. It inspired me to write a metal song (also a few of my friends keep asking me when I'm gonna write metal again so I had to pacify them for a little while lol)

The lyrics (if you can't hear them) are about travelling to Jupiter's moon, Io, and finding something there entirely inhuman and totally vicious. Amidst all that, there are soundscapes which hopefully evoke some of the more wonderous aspects of space itself and what I can only imagine as sanity-draining aspects of long-haul space travel.

Oh, and I did vocals on this one.

http://soundcloud.com/blakkwater/io-priestess-impure


Lyrics:

Enthroned upon a pillar of fire
shot through the sky towards endless black
Emptiness abounds, vaccuous entrancement
Frozen darkness, scorched by light
Space and time, twisted, encircled
Distorted, bent to unyielding will

Coursing through the ether, destination set
Navigate through unrest absolute
Caught in the pull of the Jovian lord
Look to his eye, the unending storm

Io, hear me, priestess impure
Grant us passage through your fiery breath
Sulfrous fumes, blistered earth
Ruptured heart, wanderer of the wild

Ascent into the distant heavens
Thoughts of inevitable catastrophe
Supernatural forces, power unknown
The hold it has, on life so fragile, small
Cower now, as the fury unfurls
Foreign species, rise from death
Decimate the living, putrify the dead
Spatial carnage, unholy soul

[karpathion]

I like how you change the pitch of the vocals form the low growl, to a higher range and vice versa.

Leads are awesome!

The slow breakdown in the middle is cool as hell, " I don't want to insult you, but it's cool in that old Metallica kind of way."

Jumping right back into ballz out, after the slow groove, kicked me in the teeth!

Damn fine job! You have my attention! May I please have another? If I could do almost 8 minutes like that, I would be very happy with myself.

[Phantasmagoria]

Wow...that sounded awesome man!! I've heard far..far worse sounding studio recordings Very cool song too...I like the spacey/Voivod-ish vibe! Killer solo's & that clean break in the middle is sweet...

[CTN]

lol thanks guys. That's awesome that you like it so much!

Karpathion: Funny you mention Metallica, cuz I just realized the other day that my ideas of really nice sounding cleans is very very very influenced by Metallica's JC120 clean tones.

I think my songwriting skills have improved a lot as a result of playing blues and getting more in touch with feel and groove, which were sorta missing from my playing previously. In any case, I'll be writing/posting more.

[P.A.Foholic]

Damn, mate! This is absolutely teh chit!

[CTN]

Thanks mang!

[TheLivingDead]

[CTN]

hahaha thanks man

[DankStar]

wow, sounds like a lot of work went into that!

[CTN]

hehe all of this past saturday, spent writing, recording and mixing. Most of it was probably writing the drum tracks and mixing though.

[dr. ad]

that's pretty metal

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

Wow....not much into metal.....but I really really dig the images out of this one!
It friggin' sounds like Gollum gurgling

[CTN]

that's pretty metal

Wow....not much into metal.....but I really really dig the images out of this one!
It friggin' sounds like Gollum gurgling

nice!

[Vasshu the humanoid typhoon]

He he sorry....but friggin great stuff man.

[CTN]

hehe thanks

[Frantic_Rock]

That was great man! Some unholy brutal metal. I like the interlude a lot too. The vocals are really cool. And the recording itself is excellent. I like this better than cannibal corpse, because the lyrics are better (to me atleast), there is more melody and clarity, and the interlude is very moody. It conjured up images in my head.

[CTN]

Thanks dude!

During that clean section, I was hoping to evoke a sense of being in orbit around Io...it's deathly silent, kinda sad cuz you're soooooooooo far from Earth and everything you knew and loved as part of your life, yet you're faced with the wonder and awe of the literally otherworldly beauty of all the chemical colours and volcanoes on Io.

But I would really love to know what images you guys saw/heard.

[dr.barlo]

I can say "my kinda metal" for the guitars drums and all... Yet, the "Gollum gurgling" part got me offguard!



Very nice...

B

[zenmindbeginner]

I really dig the ambitiousness of it all... took several chances with this song. The legato playing at the end was sweet.

I don't do demon vocals or cookie monster vocals... the main reason i don't listen to metal anymore. You did a great job on them though.

The extended harmony with the chords for the main theme is super cool. Really dif your time and efforts man, it sounded like a good damn amount of work.

What's the deal on the drums?

[CTN]

I can say "my kinda metal" for the guitars drums and all... Yet, the "Gollum gurgling" part got me offguard!



Very nice...

B

hehe yeah, the vocal style is definitely not for everyone/an acquired taste, but it's one of the hallmarks of the black metal genre so I sorta had to do it lol.

I really dig the ambitiousness of it all... took several chances with this song. The legato playing at the end was sweet.

I don't do demon vocals or cookie monster vocals... the main reason i don't listen to metal anymore. You did a great job on them though.

The extended harmony with the chords for the main theme is super cool. Really dif your time and efforts man, it sounded like a good damn amount of work.

What's the deal on the drums?

Thanks man, that means a lot! The drums I programmed all myself, didn't use any loops or pre-programmed beats. At one point in my life I used to take military snare drum lessons, and eventually taught myself how to play a drum kit too, so I'm familiar enough with how to construct a beat to be able to program stuff. I used the midi sequencer in my DAW coupled with XLN Audio's fantastic Addictive Drums drum sampler for all the samples (with some tweaking in my DAW). They turned out pretty good I think, but not as good as I would've like them...I still got a lot to learn about mixing drums lol