Behind The Tracks: Illusions Of Grandeur – Midnight25 (Single) (2025)

Maggie “The Siren” Carlton (Vocals) & CM Carroll (Bass): We are honored that you asked us to talk about our new single MIDNIGHT25, it’s for sure an exception in our discography. It’s a song that would not normally exist in the Illusions of Grandeur writing style. So, while in our writing process for our last record, “The Siren (2022)”. While CM was in our recording studio, just warming up, Maggie was walking through, working on some lyrics, just a basic writing process that we have. CM began playing a “riff.” Maggie stopped CM dead in his tracks and said, “Play that again.” It was just a warmup, not actually in our normal tuning of A, but this time in B. It sparked Maggie to start to write and arrange, and in about an hour, have the bed track for the song “Midnight”.

While the 1st version of “Midnight” appeared on “The Siren” album, as Illusions of Grandeur has been evolving over the past few years and changing our sound, we felt “Midnight” needed to come along on this journey. So, we, with our new producers, decided to update the song and release it as a standalone single, MIDNIGHT25.

Updating the sound of MIDNIGHT25 to meet our new production. Illusions of Grandeur has moved into a little more of a modern metal and industrial sound, which appears on our new EP “The Siren Rises PT1: The Witch”. So, taking Midnight and bringing that song into this new world was a challenge and exciting! Lyrically, while the idea for the song stems from and was inspired by and written for Netflix’s show “Wednesday,” there is a deeper meaning behind it. Humans are the true monsters, and while we have seen many portrayals of “monsters” in our culture, people are the truly scarier than the creatures of our stories.

MIDNIGHT25 is a darker song opening with the lyrics “The stroke of midnight, all creatures come to life, werewolves and vampires, sirens and ghosts, stuck in time.” The song walks you through our version of the “witching hour”, touching on the contrast between humans and our “so-called” monsters.

MIDNIGHT25 has always been a special song, from how it was written by our lead singer, Maggie “The Siren” Carlton, to how the production of the track was arranged. Brought a lot of firsts for the band. At the time it was written, the band thought of it as our “catchiest” song.

MIDNIGHT25 is a hard-hitting track filled with lyrical references to the moment of The Witching Hour. It brings to life the characters in the song and brings you into the world of “The Siren.” The composition, instrumentation, production, and melody are a new direction for Illusions of Grandeur. It is especially fitting that the follow-up release, “Curses“, will be released on Halloween 2025 (10/31/2025) as the two songs intertwine. Check them both out!

You can pick up MIDNIGHT25 here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/illusionsofgrandeur/midnight25