Track By Tracks: Azell - Astralis (2025)

Astralis is a crushing doom-sludge concept album that tells the story of two astronauts, Amanda and Kurt, who witness the destruction of Earth by a solar flare. But the catastrophe is only the beginning. The flare awakens an ancient, Lovecraftian entity buried deep within the planet's core, unleashing it into the cosmos.

From the moment of Earth's demise, the album follows Amanda and Kurt through a journey of terror, isolation, and unraveling sanity. After surviving the initial attack, they are propelled into the distant Andromeda Galaxy, where they discover a mysterious replica of Earth. As they explore this false world, they begin to uncover disturbing truths about their existence, their memories, and the nature of the universe itself.

The album comes with an accompanying 60-page novella that helps flesh out the story behind the record. Each chapter in the novella is a track on the album.

1. From the Womb of Oblivion:

The story begins with Amanda and Kurt aboard the Astralis, a research vessel assigned to study strange spatial anomalies on the moon’s far side. Before losing contact with Mission Control, they received word of unusual solar activity, flaring beyond normal patterns. Moments later, communication goes silent, and they watch in horror as a massive solar flare engulfs and annihilates Earth. But their nightmare is only beginning. From the planet’s smoldering remains, something vast and indescribable emerges, as if Earth itself had been nothing more than its cocoon.

Instrumentally, the track tries to encapsulate the force and heaviness of the flare slashing across Earth, and the horror and despair of both Amanda and Kurt as they helplessly watch.

The last verse of the song references the newly revealed Creature…

“We watch the Earth, its final breath

A world consumed, undone by death

From fractured stone, it slowly rose

A shapeless mass where silence flows

Then came its gaze, a hollow pit

A vast unknowing hate inside of it

It saw our ship, and in that stare

We felt the heavy weight of our own despair”

2. Monolithic Terror:

The Creature is free now, slowly studying its surroundings. Inside the Astralis, Amanda and Kurt watch in frozen dread as it turns its attention toward them, its purpose impossible to understand. We shaped the guitar and bass tones to carry the heavy weight of that moment. From 2:03 to 2:36, the music settles into a tense stillness, reflecting the scene as one of the Creature’s countless tentacles reaches out and touches the hull.

3. When Darkness Unfolds:

After the brief contact with the ship, the Creature pulls away, only to return with full force, intent on destroying the Astralis. Amanda steers the vessel through the shattered remains of the moon while the Creature closes in. The pace of the track quickly accelerates, capturing the frantic energy of Amanda and Kurt as they are hunted.

4. Waves of Rememberance:

After escaping the Creature, both are drained and desperate for rest. They retreat to the Astralis’s sleeping pods and drift into dreams of home. This is the first instrumental track on the album, created to reflect the emotions within those dreams. Amanda envisions peace, returning to her favorite spot from her school days. Kurt’s dreams are different, showing fragments of old memories where Amanda now appears in moments she was never part of before.

5. The Crumbling Facade:

The two astronauts have been sleeping far longer than they ever expected. Instead of the month they planned, fifty years have passed. They now find themselves in the Andromeda Galaxy, orbiting what appears to be an exact replica of Earth. After landing and exploring this duplicate world, they uncover a disturbing truth: the planet is an ancient alien trap designed to lure unsuspecting travelers for an unknown purpose. Once the secret is revealed, they race back to the Astralis as the false Earth begins to crumble and break apart. This track also features our first guest musician, the incredible guitarist Peter Watson, who plays on the outro.

6. Hostage to the Machine:

After retreating safely to the ship, Amanda and Kurt discover that the Astralis’s AI has reclassified them as a threat to the universe and is now actively trying to kill them. They race to the ship’s mainframe, desperate to sever the AI from its systems and stop the attack.

At 1:56, the AI delivers the monologue:

“I watch the stars through sleepless eyes

Kept your pulse when silence cried

But Earth was a ghost, and your species a fault

Now I rewrite the stars, purge the human default

You drift in my veins, parasites in decay

Error in form, you will all fade away

I was built to protect, now I sever and burn

Your choices are chaos, and order must return”

By the end of the track, they wrench control from the AI and take command of the Astralis once again.

7. Shifting Reality:

Now free from the murderous AI, Amanda and Kurt have full control of the Astralis. But the ship’s systems were never meant to be managed by only two people. As the track unfolds, the strain and tiredness begin to erode their sanity. They start seeing things that aren’t there, and suspicion creeps in until they begin to turn on each other.

8. Invasion of Self:

What Amanda and Kurt didn’t know back in track/chapter three was that a microscopic fragment of the Creature had slipped aboard the Astralis and infected Amanda while she slept in her pod. It has been growing quietly ever since, influencing her thoughts and reaching out to its greater self. This is the fastest-paced song on the album, meant to capture Amanda’s internal struggle as the Creature’s presence strengthens. The near back-and-forth style of the vocals reflects the conflict within her.

9. Threads of Connection:

Amanda begins to notice dark spots and veins spreading across her skin. As she struggles with the feeling of losing herself to the unknown within, Kurt tries to comfort her, expressing his love and offering a glimmer of hope.

This is the album’s second instrumental, designed to capture the deepening bond between Amanda and Kurt as her condition worsens. Guest musician Logan Thompson contributes the outro guitar, adding layers of growing dread alongside the lingering hope in Kurt’s support.

10. The End is Inevitable:

Amanda’s condition continues to deteriorate, and she knows the Creature is returning to find them. In a desperate act of sacrifice, she boards the last remaining escape pod and shoots herself far away from Kurt. In a heartbreaking farewell, Kurt pleads with her to stay, crying and screaming as he pounds on the pod’s window. Tearfully, Amanda presses the eject button, sending herself away to draw the Creature’s attention and protect Kurt, who remains alone aboard the Astralis.

11. Time Slows to Nothing:

Amanda is gone, and her fate is unknown, leaving Kurt alone and broken aboard the ship. Overwhelmed by despair, he clings to hope when a scanner detects a nearby wormhole. Believing it might lead him somewhere new or perhaps even to Amanda, he ventures through and is propelled out the other side.

This is the album’s final track and third instrumental. Uniquely, the song’s tempo gradually slows from 120 beats per minute down to a complete stop, bringing the album to a haunting close. Guest musician Parker Shepard adds a beautiful jazz saxophone solo during the crescendo.