Dyed In Grey unpack Harbinger’s emotional depths, technical ambition, and cinematic atmosphere, discussing mental health, songwriting evolution, and balancing progressive complexity with raw human feeling across their darkest, immersive album.
1.
“Harbinger” is described as your darkest and most immersive record to date.
What emotional or conceptual themes were guiding the writing process for this
album?
The album
carries a general theme of the main character' challenges with mental illness,
dealing with the ups and down in life, and struggling to maintain a balance to
the outside world. The album starts with "Sunbird" which is meant to
be more about rebirth and new beginnings while the album slowly descends,
concluding in "Decent" which is the realization of a giving into the
weight of one's anxiety, succumbing to one’s mental burdens, and spiraling
downward.
2. From
polyrhythmic metal to jazz-fusion harmony and ambient textures, your sound is
incredibly layered. How do you approach balancing technical complexity with
emotional impact?
Many of the
songs were written years ago before lyrics or melodies were added but we've
always incorporated repeating structures of verses, a chorus that is easy to
latch onto, etc. Of course, we tend to expand on it with bridges and other
progressive type sections but it’s easy to go overboard in this genre so we try
and be mindful of that and also keep the length of the songs reasonable and pay
close attention to dynamic shifts and different vocal textures.
3. Adam,
as the band’s founder and producer, how has your role evolved since The
Abandoned Part, and how did that evolution shape Harbinger?
During the
Abandoned Part, our former guitarist Pete Luetzeler was responsible for much of
the song writing and concepts of the album. I actually learned quite a bit from
him and really enjoy his approach of having no rules holding you back in terms
of his approach to melody and harmony. It was very freeing and liberating as a
songwriter. I started becoming more of an active songwriter on our subsequent
releases. I really take my time with songwriting as I'm a harsh critic of my
own riffs and ideas. I try and keep to a high standard and focus on new ideas
and riffs. It's been a fun experience over the years evolving and growing as a
songwriter and composer.
4. Your
instrumental album Anguish and Ardor highlighted a very different side of Dyed
In Grey. How did that experience influence the songwriting and arrangements on
this new, vocal-driven record?
Anguish and
Ardor was originally meant to be a full record with vocals, similar to our
prior releases though our former vocalist left the band during the song writing
process. In an effort to complete the album, we released it as an instrumental
only. I'm very proud of the final result of "Harbinger" with the
vocals and melodies playing a huge role the shape the sound and the overall
impact of the album.
5. The
album reportedly features shifting time signatures and dense rhythmic
structures. Do these elements emerge organically, or are they carefully
designed as part of the composition process?
I tend to write with my guitar on my lap and the program "Guitar Pro" which lets me write out ideas. Guitar Pro itself has become a bit of a song writing tool for me over the years. I try and avoid having odd time signatures for sake of just having an odd time signature. Again, I think its a common problem with a lot of prog metal bands, just adding or subtracting an eighth note to a riff doesn't make it "prog". I try and focus on the riff itself, if it ends up being in 5/4 then its great but I don't want to force it. Believe it or not, there is a ton of straight ahead 4/4 on this album as I want the riffs to be cohesive and flow throughout the song.
6.
There’s a strong sense of atmosphere throughout your music—almost cinematic at
times. What role does space, silence, and texture play in the way you build
your songs?
I love
clean tones, mellow ideas, and complex chord structures, especially taking
advantage of left and right panned guitars which play slightly different things
to make a more dense harmony. There's a lot of acoustic guitar on the album
layered with clean electric guitars. The clean electric parts were run through
an old Maestro Echoplex, its a huge old noisy analog tape machine but it
imparts a warm, dense, layered tone to it that really was a huge impact.
You can hear it clearly on the beginning of "Absinthe and Dead
Butterflies" as an example.
7.
Lyrically, Dyed In Grey has always leaned toward introspection rather than
abstraction. How personal is Harbinger, and were there any moments that felt
especially vulnerable to put into music?
The singer
Andres wrote all of the lyrics though we worked together on concepts and
lyrical ideas before they were finalized. The style is a bit different from our
prior albums though we focused on the concepts of mental struggles and
navigating anxiety, depression with each track.
8.
Progressive metal often risks becoming overly cerebral. How do you ensure your
songs remain gripping and accessible without sacrificing musical
ambition?
There's a
lot of great prog metal out there but we tried to avoid certain common things
as part of our production and songwriting process. For example, the album
features 100% real acoustic drums from the fantastic Matt Graff who recorded
these over a 3 day period. We did not quantize or snap them to a grid, nor were
any samples used. Guitars are also real, loud tube amps recorded with mics as
opposed to plugins or amp modelers. I guess we are some what old school in
the band but it comes from the love of some of our favorite records which were
made in the same way. Again, we try to not add unnecessary or jarring time
changes, we have repeating choruses with texturing and dynamic shifts which I
think helps make the music standout.
9.
Looking back at your discography, how do you feel Harbinger reflects the band’s
journey from The Abandoned Part to now?
We're
extremely proud of Harbinger. The album took years to complete with personnel
changes, lots of starts and stops, and other issues. We have evolved as
songwriters and performers and I think this is our best work to date.
10. New
York has a diverse and demanding music scene. How has being based there
influenced your creative mindset or approach to collaboration?
Being from
NY, we lean in on our own experiences growing up in this huge metropolis. There
are a ton of excellent players and musicians and luckily we found each other
here as well; it can just be challenging finding the same like-minded
individuals with the same creative vision but we're proud to have the current
members.
11. With
such technically demanding material, how do you translate the intensity and
nuance of Harbinger into a live setting?
While we
haven't played live in a while, we hope to be the stage again soon performing
this material. Believe it not, some of these songs are less technical and
demanding than some of our prior material so hopefully we can pull it
off!
12.
Finally, what do you hope listeners take away from Harbinger—emotionally or
intellectually—once they’ve spent time with the album?
We hope that they enjoy the album from start to finish as it is a journey. If you've ever struggled with anxiety, depression, and were unsure of yourself or your circumstances, life choices, etc. then I think this album would really resonate with the listener. It comes from a very honest and real place.
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