Sydney death metal titans, Daemon Pyre are set to release their long awaited second album, Serpent Gods And A Dying Sun on May 22. Today they release their first new music in over two years via the album’s first single, Red Sun Phenomenon.
In 2014 Daemon Pyre burst onto the Australian death metal scene and redefined it. The band’s members came from a long list of acts that were critical to the genre in the decade that came before it but they weren’t merely a sum of their parts, they brought a fresh approach to everything. From song-writing, presentation and lyrical concepts, Daemon Pyre smashed all pre-conceived ideas and replaced them with their own.
With the release of their debut album in early 2015, Daemon Pyre revitalised a stagnated sub-genre and the record received unanimous praise from around the world. The incredibly successful two-year album cycle that followed saw them tour extensively around the country playing with heavy weights such as The Haunted, Insomnium, Goatwhore, Psycroptic, King Parrot, Ne Obliviscaris and they even toured Indonesia.
Then in 2017 when the world seemed ready for Daemon Pyre to come crashing back in with album number two, the band fell silent…Frontman, Sam Rilatt stepped away from not only the band but the entire world of music which was impacting his health and his ability to be a family man. Guitarist and main songwriter, Andrew Lilley moved to California for work and the remaining members crept back in to the shadows… It all seemed to be over.
To a degree it is over, however before the final nails in the Daemon Pyre coffin are hammered in, there is the matter of the band having an album worth of unreleased material in the can…
Rilatt comments on Red Sun Phenomenon,'” Just love how much the energy of this songs melodies so perfectly run alongside the lyrics I managed to find. The deep, swelling intro, to the space in between sections, to that epic chorus…. it feels like a song about cosmic birth. Rebirth, even. A song that is about humans and the universe living in a sort of symbiosis. That there is energy out there, that we don’t understand and that we are equally complex. That we are as powerful as a rising sun. As destructive as a dying star. Again, this song was written in a way that made its meaning cryptic, but I love that about it! I love the idea that the lyrics and music together can be felt and taken by each listener differently.”
Andrew Lilley says of the song, “Red Sun Phenomenon was one of the last tracks we finished during the pre production/recording process. We tracked all the guitars and bass in my tiny 1 bedroom unit in Stanmore, sweaty dudes in a little room belting out death metal. I picked up a 7 string halfway through the writing process and was determined to find a way of using it on the record without sounding like the current trends, more of a song enhancer rather than instigator..Initially this song was a bunch of really cool riffs from Kiel (Stanger, bass) where we couldn’t quite hear the song among them all, but we were fucking determined to make one!
We came up with the ending, then brainstormed and squeezed out an idea which became the verse and everything fell into place from there. Once Sam added his vocals, it became one of the strongest songs on the record. Melodic, atmospheric, anthemic, and shows the more progressive side of the album. The primary creative drive was to try to create a record which melded beautiful and ugly. Epic and brutal, melodic and aggressive, tranquil and abrasive. Where every song really has its own vibe and this is one to scream your balls off to.”
Rilatt’s isolation from the band and his sense of freedom explored in his lyrical approach parallels the DIY ethic behind how the others wrote and recorded the album. Tirelessly working their asses off not only writing the songs, but also doing all their own tracking and pre-production.
With the band fragmented, the writing process for Serpent Gods And A Dying Sun was definitely not typical. While the players toiled away writing the music and pieced it together over several sessions spanning more than a year, Rilatt mostly stayed away and focused on the lyrics as he explains; ‘Much of ‘Serpent Gods and a Dying Sun’, from a lyrical context, was written in a way that I’ve not written before. I wanted to approach the creativity on this project in a way that felt in keeping with how I came to be involved in it. Andy, Matt and Simon knew that I had left music behind to get myself healthy and focus on being a husband and father. I felt that it took true friendship and courage on their part to ask me to be involved and to position it in a way that took so much of the pressure off of me, which for so many years, I had felt being in bands. So to honour that, to honour them asking me to return to be part of the something special that is Daemon Pyre, I made a decision to approach the lyric writing in a way that felt raw and real and unencumbered by intention or ego. Instead of writing to tell a particular story or send a particular message, I let my subconscious and my emotions speak. I let the music that the guys had created speak to me in a way I’ve never done before and allowed the melodies and rhythms to inform the words I chose.’
There is much more to discuss about the record, the bands demise and this minor resurrection to finally get the music out there. The story will be told across several single releases as the march towards album release rolls on.
Serpent Gods And A Dying Sun will be released on May 22 and is Daemon Pyre’s swan song. An album that closes the chapter on the band and sees them go out with a bang. There will be no touring and no new music following the albums release. This is for their loyal fans as much as it is for them.
Pre Order Serpent Gods And A Dying Sun Now
