Track By Tracks: Ancient Thrones - Melancholia (2025)

About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):

The album is about a person who is seemingly colourblind, who takes psychedelic drugs as a last-ditch effort to see colour. As the trip unfolds, he begins to live his ideal life, seeing colour for the first time. In reality, something else is happening. The writing is on the wall from the beginning of the record to the bitter end.

Musically, the album is tailored to the lyrics and ebbs and flows as the character makes challenging decisions, and experiences pain, joy, and perhaps most prominently existential exhaustion. The album is fast, jagged, and unapologetic in its aggression, as we lead this character to his final tripped-out day in a fantastical place.

Track by Track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):

1. A Moon Fused Key:

Kicks off the record, setting the stage for the violent nature about to unfold both musically and lyrically. This is the point of the record where the character severs every piece of life from his body. At the end of the song, he sees the hand of god pulling him to heaven, and he severs it. This song is fast, filled with crushing riffs, and sets the stage for what’s to come.

2. Achromatopsia:

This is the point where we go back in the story, an interlude of sorts, fading in between the worlds of A Moon Fused Key, and eventually leading us down the path to Melancholia.

3. Melancholia:

This is the introduction to the character and his condition. He describes how he feels out of place. At 260 beats per minute, we encapsulate every ounce of self-loathing rage the character has in this song. There is a foreshadowing at the halfway point of the record, a premonition of things to come.

4. A Turning Point:

The point where the character notices his surroundings have changed, the woods are speaking to him, and something, or someone, is calling to him. We were inspired by bands like Gojira to focus on a more groove-oriented passage for this song; it’s also one of the few times we felt the need to feature a burning guitar solo. I was inspired by the image of Herbet James Draper with Ulysses being tied to the mast to avoid the sirens, which we reference on the back part of the album. The character is being drawn into this eerie place.

5. A Pellucid Prism:

From here, we cross the bridge and enter the castle. He sees new colours, feels new feelings, as he’s exploring the rotting structure. This song is one with more post-black metal sensibilities, with droning guitars and blast beats. This is also the only time on the record where we incorporate a breakdown, with the opening track melody played slower and more sinisterly, hinting at the connection.

6. Sacred Swollen Glass:

This is when things lyrically begin to turn for the worse. We continue through the post-black metal landscape, connecting these two songs seamlessly and expanding upon the blasting forward verses.

7. Blight:

The decision, “which void will I feed?”, live life in misery or end it all, succumbing to the void, as the brain turns on itself. There was never an option. In a linear timeline of the narrative, this song would play before A Moon Fused Key. This song also features backup vocals from Dylan in the first verse.

8. A Pale Palace:

The character, while dying, imagines what could have been. The mirage is falling apart before him. We were really inspired to write something totally out of our comfort zone for this particular track. This song was semi-inspired by post-rock bands like Russian Circles, as well as more straight-ahead Black & Roll. The riff at the end took us about 5 months alone before we could play it all as a band.

9. Vacant:

The end of everything he once knew, as a new castle is forming beside him. Nick Leslie wrote the main riff for this song, and we all thought it just killed. I’m trying to do my best Jamie Saint-Merat (Ulcerate) impression here, with just a barrage of drum fills as the world of our character is being swallowed by the sands of time. I wanted this song to sort of speak the message that if you let it, time will replace you.