Thanatology has been out for more than two weeks.
While I must admit that 2023 hasn’t been an easy year for me, this release proved to be one of the few highlights. I spent countless hours with composing, recording, mixing and fine-tuning Thanatology – and now that I look back on these laborious times, I feel like each and every hour I spent with this release was worth the effort. Considering all my limitations and the hardships all along the way of creating this album, I’m more than happy with the final result. Also, promotion is going better compared to my previous records – I had the chance to give interviews (you can check them by clicking here or here) and present Thanatology to a wider audience in the metal community. Taken all these results together, I really have no reason to complain.
There is still one thing that bothers me. This one thing always keeps coming up during conversations, and to be absolutely honest, I had been contemplating a lot on it before – regardless the feedback I got. And this particular thing is the lack of lyrics and vocals in my songs. Without the intention to repeat what I already wrote on instrumental music before, I still believe that instrumental compositions have the potential to transmit feelings and emotions without channeling the listeners’ thoughts in one pre-defined direction. Instrumental music leaves place for imagination and free interpretation. Still, at the same time it loses something by not utilizing the power of words that might make the music even more suggestive. As Iris Goessens wrote in one of her Instagram stories: “if the vocals don’t kick ass, your listeners are not gonna care about the heaviest riffs in the universe, and fasterthanmaxverstappenblastbeats you guys came up with“. And this is something that I want to focus on, while meditating on the concept of my next release.
Because I’m already working on that. And believe me, it’s really not that easy: first and foremost I’m a guitar player, and I create music through inventing and playing guitar harmonies, melodies and riffs. Still, I don’t want to let half of the story being untold by narrowing my musical compositions exclusively to guitar riffs and solos. After all, my musical experimentation started with creating lyrics… Thus, finally I came to the conclusion that Thanatology will probably signify the end of an era in my musical journey: it will likely remain my last instrumental album. I can’t promise anything, though: I still don’t know vocalists who could bring my vocal ideas into life. But I’ll do my best to find someone in order to push the next Darkwave release even further, onto a completely new level.
In this regard, Thanatology is a serious milestone for me: it signifies both the end of an era, and a new beginning.