Project Description
Asvaret as a band and as an album is a project that tries to blend different emotions that range from anger, happiness and sadness. The goal of this album was to reach audiences by giving them something to resonate with on a personal level and helping them feel understood making the album more of an experience and raised to a higher level rather than just another metal album.
The creative process in creating a signature for the sound of the album went through many phases such as a more electronic industrial metal production through to the modern low tuning breakdowns heard so often in the metal scene nowadays. After the various testing of sonic signatures I ended up harnessing a combination of predominately the thrash metal genre for the heavy elements and a soundtrack, film score characteristic alongside it. The thrash subgenre represented within the fast 16th picking staccato style riffs such as those found on the third track (“Revenge”) of the album was a useful tool in establishing a natural aggressive energy. This is then followed by the soundtrack style of a full symphonic orchestra, which is a heavily stylistic decision to make the album sound as grand and excentric as possible, it also helped create more stand out and impactful narrative sections of the compositions elevating the tracks when most suited. I wanted to really push this sound into an original space so narratively I created a focused contrast within the metal and orchestral pieces that switches between genres and then brings them together best shown on the track “Eclipse” in my album. Compositionally this blend of switching and combining at decisive moments helps push it further into a new frontier of music because it isn’t just taking a few elements from their individual genres but rather combining the two whole styles in their entirety, making it more unexpected and unique.
My working practice began with creating melodic ideas within this soundscape that I decided I want to pursue. From there I chose the ones that had the most impact and emotional drive within them, whether that was a really aggressive metal riff or a catchy chord progression, I then built out from these ideas designing a narrative journey. The practice then escalated to concept writing through the means of production by using thrash guitars which are being run through amplitude 5 adding power and drive when needed with emulations of Marshall JCM 800, an iconic amp with a signature sound used across thrash helping fit within the field, as well as a Diezel VH4 emulation which introduced some low end frequencies to the tone resulting in a modern element to the production. The drums also tell the narrative of the compositions having them vary from a bigger reverb room sound to a tight crip sound depending on if I wanted a bigger scale sound to align with orchestral percussive elements or a more accurate biting sound for the thrash genre. For the orchestral elements I used designed reverbs to make the instruments sound as big and grand as possible as a creative solution to tell the signature of the album and also to align with the strong sounding metal sections creating more of a thread within the pieces.