Track By Tracks: DESCENT - Far From Glory (2023)

Let me disclaimer by saying they all weren’t the most involved and adventurous as one might hope but I guess they do all have their own little tale of origin.

I’ll just go in order of the track list, not necessarily in order of their conception.

1. Suffered Reminder:

The first two tracks on the EP are two songs that I had written and recorded on my own about a year after the big band breakup of 2004 ish ... still having that drive and metal burning in my veins I said to hell with it I can do this on my own; so I downloaded audacity, got me a Pc mic and went to town haha. I programmed all the drums originally and released them as a glorified demo pretty much with a bunch of other gems we hope to resurrect.

The lyrics of Suffered Reminders are basically telling a story, a true story, about what a friend of mine was going through when his girlfriend became pregnant and his whole world was just turned upside down which he lost no matter what choice he made when faced with his situation. I don’t really want to get into the specifics of his dilemma, he may not want those details out there, but basically, a promise was broken and as a result, he was faced with a moral dilemma of obligation Vs honesty. Life’s biggest moments are all about bad timing more often than not and they aren’t always lessons that are helpful right away, but over time heal up to be stronger, maybe not better, but not so tender anymore.

We had a hell of a time when recording the vocals trying to decide which part should be heavy and which parts should be clean we even tried all of each way and I think we have here the best amount of each to convey the message accurately haha not too harsh and not too softy pretty haha. Musically I was listening to a lot of all that remains, and unearth at the time, and really dug how they would do really complicated sounding single note riffs that were actually simple with a tweak of a fret here or there to just give it that Erie progression instead of sounding like a looped riff. Honestly, I had never planned on being the live singer I was just place-hold singing on the demo haha so when it came time to sing it while playing the guitar, I wasn’t sure it was doable! But after sitting down and just hammering it out over and over I finally was able to separate my brain enough to know when each word had to be with wherever my hand was. And it didn't give me a lot of time to headbang which kinda bummed me out a bit but I guess I’ve rattled my head enough through my life haha. Another little interesting thing maybe about when Brian was learning the drums, is I had forgotten just how deeply I’d thought about some of the parts when I was programming the chorus I had specifically written the kick drum how it is for an intentional feel and when brian was learning it he wasn’t aware of that and just played through it. I kept thinking something weird, and I was like, it’s the kickdrum part, no it goes like this, haha which I’m sure was not a pleasant experience since I can be not too tactful sometimes haha, especially when it’s an “I have my reasons “ issue haha.

2. Far From Glory:

Far from Glory is another song I had written and recorded all by myself during our hiatus so until the EP it was only a demo with programmed drums etc... The guys did a great job and fleshing out the song with me and putting their touch on the parts I had originally played just to get by haha to have something down on tape. My goal for the approach of this one is I was trying to write the fastest, stupidest, in-your-face riff that was just brutal from beginning to end but not just noise I wanted it to have a solid groove, a driving force, but with a sense of relentlessness.. the full force until finished knowing it’ll never be finished kinda vibe. The lyrics really reflect that mindset also detailing the obstacles everyone faces in life and what makes us great is always overcoming them no matter how big or small. Life is hard, especially if you’re walking a path of the importance of your destiny, it’s gonna be tough, but that’s what makes the reward worth it in the end; it’s about experiences. That’s where the best knowledge comes from, actually walking the walking and taking the leap or just taking the first step. Face life like a warrior not like a victim. If at the end of your life, you never lost a battle or never failed at anything then you really didn’t learn and grow at all and you’ll never know why you won, or what winning even means if you’ve never experienced the pain of losing and having to face humiliation to try again.

Paper Cut Throat and Asshole are two songs resurrected from the past version of Descent. They were among our favorite tunes we ever wrote and decided to bring them back.

3. Paper Cut:

Paper Cut throat is a song about a dear John letter; you know the ol’ cliche of husband comes home from a long day of work only to find an empty house and a letter on the table. Upon reading the letter he learns that his wife has left for whatever reason and this was the only way she could tell him so he’s of course heartbroken and that letter basically becomes the weapon that kills his soul. I’ve been broken up with by notes passed in class or Sunday school before haha but never like this intense of a thing; so it’s a fictional general empathy story unlike suffered which was based upon actual events and emotional reactions.

The main riff was actually written by Brian our drummer. He had come up with this weird off-time groove while playing with harmonics on the guitar one day after practice or at home or something. And our original vocalist from back in the day had written the Covet Me part which we didn’t understand back then but can sort of make sense of it now that we are more mature or something haha I don’t know. We liked it cause it was a cool-sounding back-and-forth thing we hoped to one day do with the crowd! Haha

4. Asshole:

I believe this whole song started off as a joke riff that evolved into a bouncy mean fun little groove of a song. I think we were taking a jab at bands that play clean tones or country bands or something with the way the intro riff sounds. I can’t pinpoint exactly who we were trying to emulate with the middle breakdown part but I do remember being like “We need a badass breakdown stop squeal harmony part in the middle that’s just obnoxiously groovy and simple” this is another lyrical masterpiece we had to decipher and retranslate as to us we used to think Ryan was just making words up as he went haha. But after re-sitting down with the original lyrics and modifying a word here or sentence there, we were able to put some meaning into it that may be a little abstract, but still tell a story. So if you’ve seen the lyric video you’d probably assume it’s a song about war or govt leaders or something; but in reality, to me, the song sounds like someone’s plight and frustration with God's empty promises and the bitterness of their fate while relying upon god they were let down over and over. I tried to turn toward religion but found out it was just a bunch of lies and fantasies. But there’s never a right or wrong answer to any of these songs and what they mean to the listener; these are just the basic summaries of what we think the songs could be about to us. ”