Track By Tracks: Grey Mountain - Grey Mountain (2025)
1. Grey Mountain:
Being the title track for the band and album, this song sets the scene for what we are all about. It is relatively slow to start, a little doomy, but picks up in the middle and is finished off by an epic outro with semi-blast beats followed by choral chants! Lyrically, imagine a hermit/prophet overlooking man’s broken civilization from the vantage point of an isolated mountain.
2. Perpetual Imbalance:
While pondering the miserable state of a species that is doomed to be the author of its own demise, Perpetual Imbalance also admits that this state may not be only human nature but the nature of all things. Self-destruction is arguably inevitable if a population is able to grow unchecked and consume its surroundings. This track is maybe the most immediate/energetic of the album, although not exactly conventional either.
3. A Universal Evil:
What constitutes a universal evil? Here we explore a few possibilities, but the central theme is that of religion. Once a great unifier that enabled cooperation, at least on a local level, but eventually became untenable because unfortunately it is not based on reality. This is the longest track on the record and contains a lot of moods over its seven and a half minutes. A Bohemian Rhapsody of Doom.
4. Hermitage:
A direct successor to the opening song, it literally describes the frustrations of a hermit who willfully disengages from a world on the brink of societal and environmental collapse. Reaching a conclusion that, ultimately, life is futile and all fates converge on failure. Kishor came up with the title, and concept and wrote all the music. It feels a little more discordant than the other songs on the album, but variety is the strength of this band.
5. Many Shades, a Storm:
This has a lot of musical ideas packed into a relatively short runtime and provides a brief reprieve after the density of Hermitage. Lyrically Many Shades expresses an appreciation for the beauty in violence (from afar) that nature provides. When viewed from space, a hurricane is fascinating and graceful; at ground level, not so much.
6. Decline and Fall:
Reality filtered through something a little more mystical. The lyrics refer to Theia, which is thought to be an ancient planet that collided with Earth during the formation of the early Solar System. Therefore, Earth has always been destined to be destroyed, whether by unfeeling external forces or negligent and conscious treatment from within. However, the latter is only superficial destruction since the physical planet will endure. We also touch on a theory that some, the mega-wealthy that have the most impact on society, would seek to accelerate civilization collapse so they can remake it in their preferred image.
7. Living Mythology:
Peeling away the veil of mysticism that pervades most cultures, every being in the universe is subject to the same physical laws. Yet unsurprisingly there are a million creation stories limited by imaginations chained to their present understanding of existence. Perhaps there is a kernel of truth in the myths of old that make them believable and alive but, at best, they are a quaint throwback to the past where we no longer have to dwell.
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