Behind The Artworks: Valyear - An Invitation To Chaos (2026)

The artwork behind AITC is actually quite amusing.

 

I, Chad, don't really celebrate Hallowe'en. I don't hate Hallowe'en, I actually love it, but for spiritual reasons I choose not to celebrate it. Plus I get to dress up them we perform anyway...so it's always kinda Hallowe'en with us.

 

But one morning I woke up early, and I was bored. I had nothing to do, and I had a bunch of clothes I had to try on, and I came across this cool coat I had bought several months before and never had tried on. I just didn't have time to see how it looked. So I put it on....and it looked badass. But it had this, a cloak, a type of feel. I was looking in the mirror, and I looked over and saw this mask. A replica from the movie, "The Purge", that my ex-wife had left hanging on my wall before we had broken up, and I just had this goofy idea to put it on. When I looked in the mirror, I was like, "I bet the contacts I wear on stage would look dope with this coat and this mask!" So I put them on and looked in the mirror and the person staring back at me....I swear it was not me. Like it was me in physical form....but what I saw wasn't me. It was like I was shedding the darkest version of myself. I was leaving all the darkness and the chaos in that image...and I no longer had to carry it.

 

It was the coolest out-of-body experience I ever had. I felt free. I felt like I had really shed the chaos that had been surrounding me in every aspect of my life up to that point.

 

I wanted to remember that moment, so I snapped a picture. I never wanted to forget that moment of my former self staring back at me in the mirror.

 

As I was taking it all off, I realized something. It was actually Hallowe'en!

 

When I showed Joe the picture and talked to him about it...he immediately said, "That's gotta be the album cover!"

 

It made perfect sense and fit the whole concept of the album perfectly!!