"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."
---Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

Here, In The Shadows was an absolute long before it was a reality. It was indeed a haunting, something which simply demanded to be made manifest, regardless of the obstacles reality set forth in its way. At last, this persistently possessive haunting became an occupation, and the due diligence molded what had once been the stuff of dreams into something here, now, and tangible on this side of the veil.

And the reality is thus a sound worthy of the true enduring power and mystique with which all good music haunts. It manifests the natural progression of two musicians guided by a lifetime of playing together across a full spectrum of genres, styles, and origins. Inspired by the sounds of mystery, the thrill of fear and the unknown, and the aspirations of even small heroic deeds, the album harkens toward a soundtrack-influenced presentation of the intrepid, the vehement, and the dauntless, all whilst the pure, driving rock talents of its two artists weave relentlessly between indomitable control and preternatural abandon.

Instrumental rock is a genre which can and should encompass all genres, and never before has that versatile and thematic imperative been more the focus of an album's writing. At times gothic, at times symphonic, at times blues-rock, at times even world-inspired, and at all times simply hard-rocking, Here, In The Shadows presents big, resounding guitar riffs, haunting, frenetic rhythms, and multi-textured layers of synth where each part has its place in presenting a here-vast, there-claustrophobic sonic portrait that leaps from section to section like a virtual odyssey of audible liberation.

Ultimately, you need Look no further than the 21-minute grand finale "LEVIATHAN" to experience how far and how high this journey can take you. But there are so many more rife chapters along the way: the dark, echoing, ever-building corridors of bass and crystalline keyboards in "Passage", or the deep, lumbering, organ-filled antechambers of "the Slumbering Lurking." From out of the darkness a lighter side is revealed through exhilarating admixture of gong, pentatonic scale, and classic power chords in "The Forgotten way," or an otherworldly Celtic-inspired dance between two interweaving melodies composed of flute, chorus, a whole lot of guitar, and a hypnotically free-flowing percussional voyage in "Valhalla." Threaded between it all are the band's signature jamming interludes, representative of their improvisational origins, such as "oozy" and "Melee". Two years in the making, it was all recorded quietly in the dark of a private home studio---proof that big, perhaps even monstrous things can indeed be lurking in the shadows where you least expect them. Enjoy, but know that the shallow or faint of heart were never meant to survive. Are you, dreamer, among the ready?


Inspirations include:

We grew up with Nintendo and PlayStation and 90's grunge, yet were weened on the sounds of the symphony. Metallica, Megadeth, NIN, Type-O-Negative, Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Buckethead, DragonForce, Dream Theater, The Doors, Pink Floyd, MONO, Green Day, Blink 182, Juno Reactor, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Akira Yomaoka, Nobuo Uematsu, John Williams, Castlevania . . . and anything and everything that's ever given chills and inspired wonder.