What’s “Thanatology” about?

Thanatology is a scientific discipline that examines death from many perspectives, including physical, ethical, spiritual, medical, sociological, and psychological. It emerged out of the “death awareness movement” that started in the 1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom.” (source).

Despite its title, my upcoming album has nothing to do with depression or sadness. This album has nothing to do with gloomy feelings or fear of death, too. This album doesn’t even intend to transmit negativity. On the contrary: Thanatology is my very special diary that tells you in six songs, how I slowly became aware of the fact that the time – my time – is running out. I try to present a multifaceted and very emotional picture of this deeply spiritual journey.

The opening track (“The Last Wasted Down“, referring to the realization of fragility and brevity of life) starts with an oriental flute theme. The sounds of a flute and a piano combined with progressive metal riffs lead to another oriental guitar motif, then subsequently into a faster part with tight blastbeats.The second track (“Stepping Through The Shadow Line“) is intentionally two-faced: it combines brutality with orchestrated melodies, a thrash-based speed with a funeral hymn-like gloomy bridge. “Necronym” (the name of or a reference to a person who has died – an obvious link to all things I’ve left behind to have time and dedication to do new ones) starts with an acoustic, jazzy part followed by some unconventional melodies upon a monotonous, pulsating riff and a piano-based, gloomy middle part. Following a Voivod-like bridge, the song ends up in the original riff packed with synthwave fills. Then there immediately comes the orchestral into of the fourth track (“Legacy Of The Worthless“) with tons of guitars tuned in drop D and some synthwave support. The fifth song entitled “All Shall Perish” intends to be some kind of a recognition of our own mortality, signified with the ringing bells in its intro. Then comes a part of slow brutality supported by a brass orchestra and followed by a jazzy middle part with pianos and one of the fastest moments of the wole album in the shape of an old-school thrash riff. The closing track (“Farewell Before Sunset“) is again a thrash metal-based song combined with a melody that I find very emotional.

Well, that’s basically the structure, the logic and the message of my third album that will be released exactly on the second birthday of my debut material Hexapla, on the 3rd of August 2023. I can’t wait to show you the results of the hard work of more than one year! I hope you guys will enjoy the final product!

Album cover art!

Despite that most of you probably already saw it, still I think it’s time to officially unveil the cover art for my brand-new album Thanatology!

As always, the cover photo was done by my talented, long-time friend, Dávid Ujhelyi. We’ve been friends for decades, so besides my music, he also knows the person behind it. Consequently, his cover art concept with a blend of dark artistry and clear-out symbolism serves as a visual gateway not only into the sonic realm that awaits the listener, but also to the deeper layers of my true self – a kaleidoscope of emotions, stories, and experiences that will hopefully ignite your imagination and resonate within your soul. Let me thank him again wholeheartedly for this amazing piece of art!

Stay tuned friends, as Thanatology will be released on the 3rd of August!

Announcing: Thanatology – available August 3rd!

Dear Friends,

I am thrilled to announce the forthcoming release of my new album Thanatology on the 3rd of August 2023!

Thanatology represents the culmination of countless hours spent refining the sound, exploring new sonic territories, and pouring my heart and soul into every single note. With each song, I try to embark you on a rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts, not only by mixing the rawness of Hexapla and the more complex song structures of Missa Innominata, but also by challenging certain musical conventions and orchestrating a symphony of diverse influences that hopefully fuse together to a memorable experience.

Stay tuned to darkwavemetal.com, my Bandcamp page and my social media channels for more updates and behind-the-scenes glimpses into the making of Thanatology! I can’t wait to share the album with you, who have supported me throughout all my struggles and successes of this musical journey. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to each and every one of you for your unwavering support!

If you want to presave the album (Spotify, Apple Music), you can do it by clicking here: https://ffm.to/thanatology!

Please, mark your calendars for August 3rd, and get ready to listen to Thanatology!

Stay tuned and keep rocking!

Zsolt

My guitar rig

I just realized that I never posted a decent summary on my guitar rig. Here and there I uploaded some information, but the whole stuff has never been collected so far. Well, it’s probably because I don’t use a proper guitar rig: I have five guitars, but my small amp (actually a Line6 Spider V20 guitar combo) is used only for practicing purposes, while everything you hear on the records is purely digital.

First of all, I use two guitars most of the time: for riffs I prefer my modified ESP LTD EC-256 (FM See-Thru Black Cherry Sunburst) with two high output Seymour Duncan pickups (Pegasus and Sentient). This small singlecut, fixed bridge guitar equipped with Elixir Optiweb (010″/046″) strings is capable to produce the fattest and most brutal sounds when needed. However, for guitar solos and experimentation I use my Jackson JS32Q Dinky DKA (AH Transparent Green Burst) superstrat with a Jackson-licenced Floyd Rose tremolo (to be honest, I’m not a frequent tremolo user, but sometimes it can be quite useful if you have one on your guitar). Also, I’m in love with the neck profile of this instrument (it’s actually the Speed Neck from the Jackson’s Soloist series with a shape somewhere between the “C” and the “D” neck profiles: a fast and comfortable one!) – that’s why I use it pretty often, despite the constant struggle of correctly tuning a Floyd Rose-equipped guitar. For the acoustic parts I play my Fender Redondo Player dreadnought electroacoustic guitar with a comfy “C”-shaped neck profile and a built-in Fender-exclusive CD-1 Fishman pickup/preamp system, while for the bass parts I use a budget-friendly, but solid LTD B-10 bass. And as a bonus, I have a very old friend in the family too: my old Harley Benton S-620 TR Rock Series is still with me, although I don’t use it too often anymore. I keep it mainly out of nostalgic reasons: when I moved abroad and back I had to sell my instruments and stop playing the guitar for a couple of years – and this old Harley Benton was my first guitar, when I came back and had the chance to play again.

And now comes the boring part. Everything that comes out of my guitars is routed into a Focusrite Scarlett Solo 3rd Generation audio interface, which directly sends signals into a Mac computer equpped with a Steinberg Cubase Digital Audio Workstation (I still use Elements 12.0 but in the long run I think I’ll have to invest into an upgrade to the Artist version, due to its higher versatility and premium features). The guitar sounds are produced in one of my two virtual amp-and-effects processors that turn the computer into a fully customizable guitar/bass rig. Until now I mainly used Positive Grid’s Bias FX2, but recently I started to quite heavily use the Archetype Nolly plugin from Neural DSP – both are great plugins and I plan to use them in a parallel way, according to my current needs.

An old song in new shape

A couple of days ago I asked you on my Instagram page, whether you think it’s worth to invest a lot of energy into remixing my old songs, using all the new skills and technical capabilities that I have now, years later than these old songs’ original release dates. And you were so kind as to say YES, encouraging me to keep continuing these efforts.

Well, this is what I meant when I said that I want to put these old songs in a completely new shape. I’m still working on them, but it’s like a teaser below.

Enjoy and please give me some feedback! I desperately need your opinion on that – thanks so much in advance!

https://darkwave-metal.bandcamp.com/track/aquila