Track By Tracks: Amenspear - All My Gods Are Dying (2025)

1. All My Gods Are Dying:

The opening and title track for the album is a pretty straightforward and catchy song. It has a simple black n roll type power chord riff in the verses, and then some big psychedelic chords in the chorus. The bridge slows it down a bit, keeping that expansive psychedelic vibe with some deeper double-tracked growls. Then we go back into our final verse and chorus, featuring some call and response vocals between cleans and growls. After the debut album, Vaera's long song structures, I wanted to start off this album with something more classic and digestible. Lyrically, the song is about the many things that people make their idols or gods. And how they expect these things to solve all their problems. But inevitably, the idols in our lives are always revealed to be imperfect, and these revelations can break our hearts. Now, Amenspear is not meant to be 'Christian metal' or 'worship music,' but I do happen to be a Christian, so my solution to the problem that this song's lyric poses is obvious. And you can hear it in the final chorus: "All my gods are dying, only One is rising".

2. To Feed The Spirit:

So, right after a shorter, straightforward song, we go into an expansive 14-minute epic! The listener is immediately hit with big tremolo-picked black metal chords and blastbeats, with my growl vocals a little deeper. This atmospheric section lasts for a while before we are dropped into a mid-paced Celtic Frost-influenced section with thick chugs and bending notes. This style of riffing keeps evolving until you get hit with a Morbid Angel-type double bass section, some tapping, and a clean atmospheric interlude. Then back into an epic buildup of Krallice-influenced black metal and blastbeats, before closing with some riffs from earlier. The lyrics are inspired by a summer in my life some years ago. I had just experienced the most painful death of my life. And I tried to heal my grief with casual sex, which was often gained by playing a part or wearing a "mask". Unsurprisingly, this proved totally empty and devoid of meaning, and did nothing to heal the pain of the loss. The lyrics examine the feelings of that time.

3. Dead Or Alive:

After the last track, we are back to another straightforward song. Black n roll style verse riffing, some interesting melodies in the chorus, bridge, and outro. The vocals again trade off between cleans and growls. Lyrically, the song is also straightforward. It's about the people that choose to live their life cynically and pretentiously, looking down on people who are simply living their life with joy. And ultimately, these types of "cynics" are miserable and unhappy. It's inspired by some people I've come across in life, but I can sometimes see those same cynical qualities in myself. Generally, in my lyrics, if I'm singing critically about a person or experience, I'm also singing about the internal battle within myself as well.

4. Our Lady Of Sorrows:

This song is one of two (along with The Letter) that has very old music and lyrics. Naturally, they are both doomy and lyrically connected. It's inspired by a sad personal reality, about an old woman who lost her son and husband within years of each other, and is now just a sad old widow "waiting to die". All the happiness of the old memories is slowly fading away and being overshadowed by the grief of the current years. The song starts off with some atmospheric clean guitars and mellotron, before transitioning to classic Opeth style chords and leads. Finally, the vocals enter, mournful clean harmonies and some growls. This Opethy section evolves for a bit before we get dropped into some death-doom style twin guitars. Then another atmospheric section before the grand finale (that I'm quite proud of!). More twin guitars, with vocal harmonies miming the guitar lines, then enters a clean guitar track and more growls creating a massive multi-tracked sound before we suddenly drop into the final quiet line: "Winter has come, the world is dead. The queen had her reign and she is waiting to die."

5. Haruspex:

After that very depressing song, I figured the listener needs a pick-me-up! So next comes Haruspex. Some spacey clean guitar with an almost hip hop type groove starts the song before things get heavy and uptempo again for the first verse. Then comes a weird but punky riff inspired by late-period Darkthrone. This repeats for a while to accommodate the rapid fire growl vocals that spit out the verses. Then into classic tremolo picked black metal and blastbeats before reprising a riff from earlier, but this time in its full context, with Morbid Angel style double bass and growls. Finally, we end the song with the riffs from the beginning and the spacey clean guitars again. These lyrics are pretty personal again. Simply put, it's about a toxic relationship. One that I stuck myself in largely due to the same grief that I touched on in the lyrics from To Feed The Spirit.

6. Pearls Before Swine:

I try not to write cheesy breakup songs, but alas, here we are. This song is inspired by the same toxic relationship from Haruspex, so they are thematically linked. But this time, the lyrics examine my part in the drama. There's one line that goes "Blindfolded butcher and eyeless victim". Well...the blindfolded butcher is me! That pretty much sums up the lyrical meaning. A guy who doesn't know what he's doing and isn't living his life with intention. Musically, this song has a standard structure like the title track and Dead Or Alive. The verse and bridge riffs snake around, with some processed, fuzzy clean vocals on top. The chorus gives you massive-sounding chords with catchy growls that quote, of all things,...the Bible! We hear this structure a couple of times before going into the outr,o which is really heavy. Thick chugging with polyrhythmic drums underneath evolves the drum pattern before the final release. One of my favorite tracks on the album!

7. The Letter:

Finally, we close the album with The Letter, which is the oldest Amenspear music and lyrics that I've written. It dates back to 2010! It's about the first serious death I experienced, the funeral, and the aftermath in the family (a lot of death and grief on this album!). The Letter in the title refers to an actual letter that the same old "Lady Of Sorrows" from track 4 physically put into the deceased's coffin. This heartbreaking image inspired the whole song, which I wrote in the days after as a teenager. Originally, it was meant to be arranged as a full heavy funeral doom song, but instead it evolved a bit into something a bit more dynamic. We begin with a Mellotron and Mellotron flute, before being hit by clean guitars and syncopated drums. Sad multi-tracked vocal harmonies carry us through the verses before things finally get heavy several minutes in. The vocals continue to consist of harmonies. The pace begins to pick up more in the final minutes before the final crushing riff. Finally, the growls return in the final verse. The song and album ends with about 12 tracks of clean wails and growls screaming: "Death!". Hope everyone enjoys the album! It's out everywhere (Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp, Apple, etc.) on August 22! Follow me on Instagram at @amenspearband and feel free to message me your feedback on the music!