So this is something that I’ve been working on since October last year. Like many of my projects, I took a lot of breaks from it, so it’s hard to determine exactly how long I spent on this, overall. However, it is without question my most intense and ambitious musical venture ever. It’s a progressive metal-themed suite written in MIDI, featuring some of my most complex riffs, stupidest guitar/keyboard solos, and most erratic time signature changes yet – taking a lot of cues from Dream’s Theater’s “Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence” and Symphony X’s “The Odyssey” (Opeth and DGM also helped me out). It’s also my longest MIDI track ever, clocking in at just under 44 minutes in length.

It tells the story (mostly through the crappy lyrics I’ve written for it) of a young demigod of Order, sent from the world of the gods to rid the Mortal Realm of the destruction and disorder caused by his own brother. He sacrifices his godhood and arrives as a mortal, finding the realm in complete chaos. Throughout his journey he meets a number of obstacles, but pulls through with the help of his friends. In the end, having banished his brother from the Mortal Realm, he decides that his purpose as a god has been fulfilled, and renounces his immortality permanently to spend his new life alongside his fellow human friends.

This is the same story me and my brother have been working on for smeg-knows-how-long, and now we finally have something to show for it.

The Suite:
Godhood (43:39)

Movements:
I. The Eternity Fountain (Overture) (5:38)
II. Descent of Fire (4:37)
III. Terra Incognita (4:19)
IV. Wicked Gods (3:13)
V. The Serpent’s Puzzle (4:54)
VI. Bitter Visions (5:37)
VII. Temple of the Unforgiven (4:01)
VIII. The Void (4:18)
IX. Cosmic Clash (3:28)
X. Denouement (2:59)

The MIDI page has also been updated with these new tracks.

Hope you enjoy this crazy venture of mine! 😀 As it happens, I am already debating writing a sequel to this, an even more ambitious venture than the first. D:

I’ll be writing in MIDI again, of course (it’s the medium through which I am most musically able – Reason is my DAW of choice, but its lack of a staff window kind of limits me). However, I want to take it in a slightly different direction. It will again be a huge suite separated into movements, but I want to play around with some more neoclassical elements rather than the slightly less melodic (but still awesome) thrashings of progressive metal. Two of my favorite metal bands are Yngwie Malmsteen and Rhapsody of Fire – some of their tracks are made of pure, undiluted awesome, and the classical elements really shine through and resonate with me because let’s face it that stuff is genius.

I’ll also experiment around with the movement lengths a little bit more. Instead of an overture, I think I’ll have a huge, epic 12-or-so-minute movement in the middle, during which most of the events of the piece will take place. Plot-wise, it will follow the same protagonist as before, but the plot I have in mind is a lot more than a simple journey and probably can’t be expressed through lyrics in a way that won’t sound pretentious and contrived – but I can reveal that it will be a tale of love, rebellion, justice… and a wee bit of time-travel. Possibly zombie gods, too. :O

Anyway, thanks for the feedback so far, guys! Hope you enjoy it once you get through it all. 😀 This was a lot of fun to do, and I think I will continue to do it. 😀