We’ve had the absolute pleasure of presenting videos over the past few days that were shot and made possible by one of the blog’s favorite up-and-coming prog metal bands, A Sense of Gravity. For our official NAMM video wrap-up though, we decided that it’d be nice to let the band speak in their own words about the experience and what’s coming up on the horizon for them. So here’s C.J. Jenkins (vocals) to tell you all about it!
What an awesome whirlwind experience NAMM was this year! All the expensive new gear we tried and talented musicians we met made for equal parts excitement and sensory overload, and Brandon, Brendon and I are already looking forward to next year. We are even more thrilled that with the help of the uber talented gentlemen here at Heavy Blog Is Heavy we have been able to share with you some of our most memorable moments and relive them ourselves. We even made this little wrap-up video for you guys with our thoughts on the event as well as some news about our upcoming record.
Of course, so far you’ve heard the latest and greatest news from the artists we interviewed, but how about us? Well, up in Seattle, we have been slaving away on the follow-up to our 2014 debut album, Travail, and we can’t wait to share it! Of course, this being our sophomore record, you can expect to be mildly to extremely disappointed with our inability to recreate the magic of our past, along with our newfound infatuation with rap vocals, 4/4 time signatures, verse-chorus-verse arrangements, a heavy use of autotune, dubstep beats, and a lack of kvlt dj0nt trvth in general. However, fortunately for you guys, we don’t worry too much about expectations, so we think you’ll dig the new stuff. Here are a few clips to give you a taste, and we are always teasing more over on Facebook and Instagram.
Pete (drums):
Chance (bass):
Brendon (guitar):
C.J. (vocals):
Morgan (guitar):
We aren’t quite ready to share the full tunes yet, since…well…they aren’t done! …But here’s what we can tell you. Just about all the music is written, sans certain intros, interludes and outros, and we are in full-on recording mode. Pete tracked drums at Fastback Studios with the always fantastic Jason Lackie, just like on Travail. Our new guitarist Morgan’s rhythm guitar tracks are finished and now Chance, Brendon, and Brandon are laying down their parts simultaneously with me tracking vocals as they complete songs.
In late March, we’ll be changing things up a little bit by sending our tracks overseas to Domination Studio, situated in the Republic of San Marino, to be mixed and mastered by Simone Mularoni, the extremely talented guitarist of DGM and Empyrios. We thought Travail turned out great sonically, especially considering we did it all on our own, but Simone operates on a whole other level of earwax-melting clarity that we think will bring out the best in our songs.
Art this time around was done by Ryohei Hase, an incredible Japanese artist with a very unique style that brings to life dark, surrealist imagery with vivid colors and extreme detail. We also made sure to get custom pieces made for an entire album spread, which we are planning on utilizing for a CD digipack, and potentially, a glorious vinyl run.
The album will be twelve songs totalling between sixty and seventy minutes in length. All of the material is brand new and contains a good balance of death metal brutality, prog-o-licious complexity, and delicate melodies, which is making for a very diverse and yet cohesive-feeling album. I contributed much of the vocal lines and all the lyrics for the album as well as a bit of music, but Brendon and Morgan wrote most of the music. Morgan’s contributions fit surprisingly well into our sound considering how new he is to the band, and he has kept things fresh while also helping us further define “the sound of the band.”
We also have a lot of exciting things in the works including a website, several new t-shirts, music videos, and more! Keep your eyes and ears peeled on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for all that goodness! Finally, we are very eager to get out there and play for you all as far and as wide as possible, so if you know any touring bands that need a supporting act, shoot us a message!
-C.J.
And there you have it! Needless to say, we’re all pretty much sitting on the edge of our seats in anticipation for this. I just want to thank C.J., Brendon, and Brandon again for everything they did for us that week. With luck we’ll be at NAMM 2017 ourselves to join in on the fun and coverage, but these guys did as valiant a job filling in for us as we could’ve hoped for. We actually have one more thing from the week to show off, but we’re holding onto it for another few days for reasons that will become self-evident once we post it.
Finally, if you read all of that and still haven’t listened to ASOG’s incredible debut album Travail, you should probably get on that! Read our review here, and stream/purchase it from their Bandcamp here.