Please Allow Me to Introduce You to The Great Discord
Jonathan Barkan
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As you’ve probably noticed, one of the topics I cover here on Dread Central is music. For as much of a horror fan as I am, I may be a bigger fan of music. From a very young age, I was always fascinated by how music had the ability to make me feel a swath of emotions. And not just a pop song making me happy or a ballad making me sad. I experienced nostalgia, envy, hope, ecstasy, rage, desperation, and so much more, all through a wide variety of genres, melodies, and songs. I was never ashamed that my playlist, if put on shuffle, might jump from Spice Girls to Beethoven to Weird Al to Metallica to Wu-Tang Clan to Danny Elfman to Chicane to Opeth to Johnny Cash to Edith Piaf and so on and so forth. Listening to music has always been an active experience for me, never a passive one. When people tell me that they want me to listen to a song that they are in love with, I do my best to shut out the world and give that song my full attention because it’s what my friend, and the song, deserve.
Anyways, let me get to the point of this post, which is to introduce you to Swedish “progressive death pop” (they’re metal, to be clear) band The Great Discord. In 2015, they released their debut album Duende, which I’ve listened to easily 100 times since it came out. It’s one of those releases that feels like you’re listening to a painting, each playthrough unveiling another layer that went previously unseen. Tracks like “Woe” and “Ephemeral” brilliantly illustrate how metal can be beautiful, almost heartachingly so. Meanwhile, “Angra Mainyu” and “A Discordant Call” shimmer with airs of dark mystery, parts of them strangely frightening.
I bring The Great Discord up because they’ve recently announced that their new album, The Rabbit Hole, will be coming out in the coming months. While they haven’t given a concrete release date, they have released their first single in the form of “Darkest Day”, which you can listen to below.
What makes this album so exciting for me, aside from the fact that it’s a new album from The Great Discord (reason enough), is that supposedly it’s heavily influenced by Alice in Wonderland. As the band puts it, “…this album is our take and our dark twist on a famous story by Lewis Carroll.” Being that Alice is a story that is near and dear to my heart, this basically means the album falls into the “must-have” category of my life.
Since I’m such a fan and since they’re nowhere near as big as they deserve to be, I’ve written this piece in the hopes that you’ll give them a chance. Listen to “Darkest Day” below and, if you like it, check out their other stuff. If you’re into thought-provoking, challenging, and fascinating music, I assure you that you will not be disappointed.
Categorized:News
