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Escapism Part I | prog-metal GAF unite!

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sankt-Antonio

sankt-Antonio

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Hi Gaf!
My band, the abandoned door, just released their first album!

So.... let's get started:
We play post/prog-metal and tried to get away from "regular" song structures.
So we ended up with a song that, much like a movie, changes constantly and tells an ongoing story.
This experiment turned into a 30 minute long song, called Escapism Part I.


I hope you give it a try and enjoy it!

Download the album for free at: Bandcamp
Input $0 at checkout to download the album for free, but we won't say no to some cash!

Watch our video: Escapism Part I - Youtube
We use the video during our live set, therefore some parts of it are kind of heavy on strobe-effects.
If you tend to get epileptic seizures or blackouts when exposed to certain light patterns or flashing lights - take care of yourself :D

Our facebook page: facebook.com/theabandoneddoor
Feedback would be all kinds of awesome.

If you're not into 30 min. long songs of bands you never heard about, listen to this for a minute or two...or three,
I think that part of the song shows very nicely what we sound like and what we tried to do with this record.

The album was recorded, mixed and mastered at GKG Mastering Studio,
massive thanks to Ludwig - who had to handle over a hundred tracks! we are deeply sorry! :D

What do you think GAF?
 
Post-and-during-listen thoughts:

  • Riff at around 14 minutes was the song's best.
  • Guitar and bass work song's best, drum work occasionally good, instrumental parts better than vocal parts IMO
  • Heavier chords made the song better.
  • Sound effects actually work. The rain and sounds of shattered glass totally work with the theme set in those parts. This can otherwise be very clichĂ©d, but it works in this song.

I can't define "better". It's a pretty interesting attempt at avoiding the verse/chorus concept alltogether. I envy your guitar work, that was pretty cool.

In the end what I feel is crucial in a song without a classical structure is unity between instruments. The song does have pretty decent unity between bass and guitars, and in some spots drums also jump into said unity, but vocals never really connect.

I am absolutely not saying I could ever write something this complex myself, so don't take what I'm saying that way. Do you actually perform the full thing live? How do you memorise it all? I have drummed live before, but those were all structured songs you could memorise like a rhyme or poem, and never longer than seven or eight minutes.

This post might be really unstructured because I wrote it while listening, which isn't a good idea for making sense.
 
Rapstah said:
Post-and-during-listen thoughts:

  • Riff at around 14 minutes was the song's best.
  • Guitar and bass work song's best, drum work occasionally good, instrumental parts better than vocal parts IMO
  • Heavier chords made the song better.
  • Sound effects actually work. The rain and sounds of shattered glass totally work with the theme set in those parts. This can otherwise be very clichĂ©d, but it works in this song.

I can't define "better". It's a pretty interesting attempt at avoiding the verse/chorus concept alltogether. I envy your guitar work, that was pretty cool.

In the end what I feel is crucial in a song without a classical structure is unity between instruments. The song does have pretty decent unity between bass and guitars, and in some spots drums also jump into said unity, but vocals never really connect.

I am absolutely not saying I could ever write something this complex myself, so don't take what I'm saying that way. Do you actually perform the full thing live? How do you memorise it all? I have drummed live before, but those were all structured songs you could memorise like a rhyme or poem, and never longer than seven or eight minutes.

This post might be really unstructured because I wrote it while listening, which isn't a good idea for making sense.
Click to expand...

Thank you very much! It's always good to hear an honest opinion about the song and not just friends telling me/us how awesome the song is...

We deliberately tried to do something else with the vocals, like not putting them in the spotlight etc.. and you have to cut our singer some slack, he has to play his guitar while singing ;)
I'll def. bring that up next time I meet the band.

We had so much fights about the samples/sound effects, I'm glad that you think that they work. I'm more of a purist and drove the band crazy with my "hate" for samples.

Yes we play that live, our drummer has a click-track in his ear, a beamer puts our video on stage and a backing-track contains all the samples and the narrator. But it's still a crap ton of stuff to memorize... and from what i can tell Part II is going to be even harder to memorize :/
 
sankt-Antonio said:
Thank you very much! It's always good to hear an honest opinion about the song and not just friends telling me/us how awesome the song is...

We deliberately tried to do something else with the vocals, like not putting them in the spotlight etc.. and you have to cut our singer some slack, he has to play his guitar while singing ;)
I'll def. bring that up next time I meet the band.

We had so much fights about the samples/sound effects, I'm glad that you think that they work. I'm more of a purist and drove the band crazy with my "hate" for samples.

Yes we play that live, our drummer has a click-track in his ear, a beamer puts our video on stage and a backing-track contains all the samples and the narrator. But it's still a crap ton of stuff to memorize... and from what i can tell Part II is going to be even harder to memorize :/
Click to expand...

Cool, I'll definitely check out Part II when it appears.
 
So we had a gig the other night, shared the stage with an italian band called "gottesmorder", went really well - lot's of fun AND i was representin' gaf:
Check out my T-shirt :D



Was nice playing infront of some black metal guys, i always enjoy not fitting in, Ha!
 
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