illusions of life and death

a question: do you know that you are alive? if so, what makes you believe that this is a fact? some of you will say "of course do I know!" but what proof do you have since no one knows what death is like? considering this statement the story gets a weird touch for the next song "Illusions of Clarity" could be seen as the death of the character...or just a vision of death, a lucid dream, realistic enough to drain the last whit of wit still left by now. the difference of those possibilities seems quite big, beeing already dead or just the experiance of dying while staying alive. but as the story continues it will become a nicety which is just something to ponder on while not being essential for the whole plot. between dreams and visions it might actually be possible that our character would not notice his own death, so in this case the story (after "Illusions of Clarity") would be completely set in afterlife being just another illusion.

nevertheless the story will indeed continue no matter how one interpretes the lyrics of Illusion of Clarity. the following part is a exclusively epic one. "Visions" is a song to take you away somewhere, far enough to forget such nuissances as matters of life and death or even less crucial things. with only few faster parts breaking the tranquility, the 15 minutes of "Visions" represent exactly what the song is all about. dreaming between the worlds there is no need for profane thoughts. the philosophic approach to all problems that have yet to be solved takes its time and its toll...fatalism and apathy would eventually be the outcome. the thought of reality being not real enough to be worth any effort makes you believe that nothing you do is of major importance anymore. therefore the insight gained in this state of mind might prove not that purposeful as suspected. but still the target is locked and the quest continues. as our hero focuses again on the tasks ahead, the avenger offers his help once more...

< /life > ... or: the power of hope

Nostalgic dreams...compared to what is real there's always some bitter taste when thinking of a perfect past. not at all for having lost something, but even more because the wish to regain control of events comes forth. the next song of the album is exactly set when the search for the mystic vale of dreams has ended in front of sealed gates. looking for another way to get in, our plagued soul is haunted by painful memories which are clearly displayed in the lyrics to "Über den Pass des Wahnsinns". melancholy is overwhelming now: a decision between life and death, conceding or continuing the struggle is at hand.

the conflict of emotions is a very complex one...on the one hand you have a great depression, mourning of what has been lost, suicidal thoughts. on the other hand there is the urge to regain control, find his lost love and return to the vale behind the gates. combined with the thought of suicide being an act of cowardice our hero decides to try once more...

"Und eines Tages frag ich dich,
sag, hat es sich gelohnt für mich,
noch mit dem Zeitpunkt abzuwarten,
an dem ich gehe ins Verderben,
und einmal glücklich sagen kann
heute ist ein schöner Tag zum sterben..."

...at the end of the song there is still one question left: is there a point in continuing the struggle? or is everything lost already and death would be just the solution to end the misery?

dreams of reality...

"Im Tal der Nebel" is a quite important part of the plot. what happens in this song is merely a dream, leading to further confusion. although the main content are just thoughts, emotions, and fears, there is a big question at the end of it all...was this all real?

the whole song is actually about the discovering of a vale, some kind of paradise, which - surrounded by mountain ridges - can be entered only at one place: a gate at a pass high above the vale. crossing the borders to the fantastic ground everything seems to turn better, ways out of the misery spring to mind and a feeling of deep harmony arises. in fact this whole part is missing in the text itsself, but this image of the vale is an essential part in order to understand what the rest is all about.

what happens then is part of the vanishing of borders between reality and dream, the biggest part of the whole story. not knowing if the mystic vale was just a dream, a frantic search is initiated for the charakter has yet to find his lost love and a whole place which is not known to even exist for sure. confusion is complete as the search hast to continue both in reality and dreams. in this most emotional part of the plot the german language does it's part pretty well, its actually intensifying all the feelings and simultanuously adding a rough edge to everything because of the harder pronounciation you might already know from listening to german lyrics in general.

by now its not clear whether the vale itsself is a real place or not, and so it will stay throughout the rest of the story. at the end of "Im tal der Nebel" the vale is finally found again - either in another dream or in real life - but no matter what, the gates are locked and there's no way to get to that wondrous place again. this is the point when everything fades into melancholy, depression and frustration. still all those suicidal emotions can't devour the urge to find a solution to the scenario yet...

the offering

Continuing with "The Unholy Avenger" the whole story gets a slightly epic touch. being some manifestation of outerworldly powers, the spirit, just known as "the avenger" in the context, appears. within the situation it may not be clear what exactly the intentions of the spirit are and why it gets in contact with the main character of the story. I would consider the appearance of this power a cosmic intervention just to provide the chance to mess up with everything for a while. actually the only quite disruptive part of this events is the way which the avenger offers his help in.

it seems not appropriate what consequences the intervention of the avenger would have at last. so seemingly still in control of the situation, our character is declined to accept the provided auxilliaries and continues the struggle on his own. you might say ok whats the point in not having your soul sold - as its still black metal you know - but put that thought aside for a while. actually in that part of the plot there is really no point in accepting help for a high price. you wouldn't do that if you thought you can get everything the way you want it, would you?

what is left now is the impression of the contact with the spirit, quite amazing if you look at it that way. cosmic powers trying to involve you in some kind of deal or something - not a trickster mage's move you see everyday. after all, not taking any help from this weird spectre makes him even more apt to think he could indeed be not able to manage the events himself than afore. suspicion, doubt, hints of intrigues and even more malicious thoughts are constantly coming forth, letting reality, dream and vision become indistinct...

a lovestory? well...

When you hear the first chords of "Approaching the Shores of Solitude" you might expect something completely different from what is coming next. in fact I tried to create an atmosphere that, according to the monotony and the quite strange harmonics, is actually very dark and depressing. to me it was the perfect introduction to a story that indeed contains at least in the first part exactly this feelings. the contrast to the lively "Winter Moonlight Tragedy" first doesn't seem to fit in this context, but as the story continues you will see that WMT is actually far away from being that happy as it sounds when you're listening to it.

as the titel of WMT already tells, the plot starts in winter. not as grim as the surroundings is the story itsself, indeed quite nice to be honest. at least the first sequence starts off as a lovestory - however, this is still black metal so it can't be that easy, can it? as it must be, its not at all a happy tale...I would like to say its too drastic to be real, but as life shows I have to admit that it is not far from what one might expierience everyday.

after all the first few moments of happyness fade away - left is suspicion, doubt, but also a certain determination to get everything in order at last. still there's nothing completely lost at the end of WMT...

what's it all about? - the plot

delay ahead...I was informed that Sabian has neither in Austria nor in Canada a 15" aax-treme china available - this makes my setup incomplete until March, if I'm lucky, for Sabian will have to make the cymbal brand new just to get me the one I want :P

this will set the beginning of any recording as far back as at least end of March if not April 2009

same day I was kind of forced to explain the whole story of the upcoming album - not that easy according to the fact that it was late evening and I was on the way to getting me pissed^^ actually I managed the task, now thinking that if I already informed someone about the overall context including some further details, I could also make this information public as well. the following discussion about interpretation of my statements made me think it would probably better to simply outline the plot of the album yet leaving my personal thoughts and intentions of the songs in particular unmentioned. this will be done soon here...

the whole album will contain 11 tracks, by name:

1. Approaching the Shores of Solitude (Intro)

2. Winter Moonlight Tragedy

3. The Unholy Avenger

4. Im Tal der Nebel

5. Über den Pass des Wahnsinns - Das Ende einer Reise

6. Illusions of Clarity

7. Visions

8. Tempest from the Past - Memories Enshrined in Darkness (Unholy Avenger part II)

9. Freezing Hearts in Silent Storms (Interlude)

10. Winterblast

11. Arcane Inferno

as mentioned before, some tracks will not appear on "Arcane Inferno" despite being part of the story or related to it. these songs entiteled "The Empyreal Abyss", "Heir to the Throne", "Coronation of Abyssmal Sorrow", "Volcanic Blood" and "Thus the Empire Rises" along with some other tracks, will probably come with the 2nd release of ours.

artists and more...

unexpectedly I can announce that I've found someone to professionally finish the cover artwork of the upcoming album. VampireKrabat from Thüringen (DE) will get us a hopefully great picture of the concept I sent him lately...I don't know what's exactly the outcome of his engagement, bust i suspect that if you need something designed - thats the man!

the cover image is closely related to the content of the album, real deeply symbolic character...well it wont be something you get when just listening to it a few times, more to that when our artworker's job is finally done!

further information according to winterblast: our shirts (front: winterblast logo back: extract of "Unholy Avenger" lyrics) are available for 12€ (shipping not included) Sizes: S,M,L,XL ... Fruit of the Loom, real sound quality!
contact boronian@gmx.net for any information or orders

becoming international ... or: se hole in inglisch nau

supposing that anyone might actually read this stuff I'll be putting some more information in this online presence of mine...
well this blog had first been a senseless projekt of my studies to become a teacher (or whatever... nevertheless - no point in making this stuff according to the future job indeed). so now with this already existing, what to do with it? not expecting that anyone who lives near to me would find this blog accidentially afore stumbling across either my homepage, lastfm site or myspace, I would say its really useless to put further information on this site. but as I see that at random I myself come across blogs in russian, spanish and so on...perhaps its a chance of getting some international presence.

so now afore I'm coming to the end, indeed posting links to the mentioned sites, just a few words to my person...
as one might see when looking to the right I am an artist. head of the symphonic black metal band Winterblast, now starting a progressive dsbm project named Garden of Grief. In both projects I always try to reach traditional boundaries of the genre and proceed further on...bad thing is the concept is bigger than is useful for achieving some professional results in a short amount of time. for that reason its the case, that we have currently no recordings of what I would say comes near the idea of how it should be...so if anyone has a look at the songs on our homepage or myspace site, consider them far away from the upcoming recordings we are currently preparing for.

taking as much time as needed to perform in a professional way, the next step will be the recording of the first album "Arcane Inferno Of Devastated Dreams - A Dismal Tale Of Live, Love And Loss". this first chapter is a concept album, the core beeing personally inspirated, now forming an epic story about a trip to derangement at last. actually some songs had to be cut away for the album for with an appropriate length in mind you couldn't take everything at once and put it on the first record. so considering some songs "not finshed" yet, there are still at least 5 additional songs which would be part of the concept or the "story" of the album. probably this additional material will come with the next record "Reclaiming the Wastelands" or even later in the future with an enhanced version of "Arcane Inferno"

big plans as you see, but everything is in progress...I will keep this blog as an report on the recording progress and all the stuff around, so anyone interested can follow my process of finishing this great concept...

finally the links to Winterblast:
Homepage - ENTER
Myspace - ENTER
Lastfm - Winterblast
Lastfm - Garden of Grief


HAILS!
Boronian Sturmfels