It’s been a few years since Freya dropped the seriously under-appreciated Grim, but happily the guitarist who helped inject so much vitality, diversity, and drive into that record — Brendon Flynn — has resurfaced to carry the torch forward with a new lush, proggy, atmosphere-heavy new metal outfit, Diagonal Path. The band’s immersive debut full-length, The Die-Off, feels a bit like an nuanced effort to build a bridge between classic My Dying Bride and latter day Devin Townsend. And we’ve got an exclusive stream of the title track below.
“[Vocalist] Greg Pier wrote all of the lyrics on the album and leaves a lot of room for personal interpretation within his writing,” Flynn tells Decibel. I used his lyrics to inform all of the artwork throughout the album as well. ‘The Die-Off,’ as I perceive it, is about how we can’t escape death, no matter how hard we may ignore it’s inevitability. Death happens all around us, touching our lives in different ways and through our blind arrogance as a collective species — and we may bring it upon ourselves as a mass extinction.”
The Die-Off is now available via iTunes and CD Baby. Check out a second track below. Follow the band on Facebook and Instagram. And scroll down for more on Diagonal Path’s creation story courtesy Flynn below.
“‘The Die-Off’ is the first song that I wrote for Diagonal Path,” Flynn explains. “It’s also the song that brought me out of a pretty long period of writers block and helped inspire the direction for the rest of the album. As I continued writing and arranging the material, it became obvious to me that I should record the songs, but I would need a drummer and vocalist to fully realize what I wanted to hear… So I thought, ‘Why not start with your ‘dream’ roster?’
“I have known Greg Pier since I was 18, mostly through playing local shows in Syracuse, with his band, Mandate of Heaven. He and I have talked for years about collaborating on something, but our paths never seemed to align. I always loved his voice, writing and lyrical sensibilities and thought that these songs would be an unusual, but perfect fit for his unique style. Greg’s performances and lyrical themes on the album gave cohesion to the material that only he could. And Baard Kolstad was on the top of my list of drummers to hire, due to his very creative, energetic and emotive style. The seamless blending of musical genres within his playing and his confidence with odd meter is what really caught my attention and in the end, really helped define the sound of Diagonal Path.”
