Track By Tracks: November Fire - 2025 (2025)

1. 2025:

"2025" was one of the first riffs and songs we played back around 1991 when we just started up November Fire and could barely play our instruments or sing (or tune! Or sing in tune!). We were into thrash and hardcore at the time, bands like Sepultura and Black Flag, so the riff was straight up and heavy; even so, it was a song we only practiced a handful of times before dropping.

The concept for the original lyrics was simple: at some far-off date (34 years in the future! WOW, we’ll be so old by then!), there would be some sort of apocalyptic death for everyone, as the first line suggests, “2025! THE YEAR WE ALL COME TO DIE!!!”. Even though we dropped the song, the idea of it persisted for years as an inside joke, that the end of days was approaching, 2025 (get that bucket list done!).

Fast forward to sometime in 2024, after we had finished recording our album, the thought occurred to us that it would be pretty cool to resurrect the song for the year of its inspiration. We toyed around with the riff, played with the arrangement, added a killer bridge, and a wild psychedelic ending of the world for a finale. We then knew we had to do it! We morphed the lyrics from straight up “WERE GONNA DIE” to a climate change rage approach, lyrics suggesting the greed of man driving climate change-related disasters, and keeping the sentiment “WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE!”

2. Somina:

"Somnia" features O.G. November Fire 2nd guitarist Greg Brosseau on guitars and lead vocals, and came about while we were working on "2025". We always want to include the bandmates we had over the years, as they were before and still are great friends. So a collab came together with Greg. Greg and Dave used to hang out and jam together late at night back in those days (92'ish), tinkering with weaving guitar lines, and they had a bunch of these they toyed with, the kind of stuff that only happens when it's 3am and it feels like the whole world is asleep.

So much like "2025", "Somnia" was revived with new lyrics and an expanded arrangement. “It’s a song of awakening, and reflection on where we’ve been, what we’ve learned, and where it will lead,” adds Brosseau on the lyrics. The song pairs nicely with "2025" on the EP, a mysterious waking dream in contrast to the in-your-face grinding viciousness of "2025".