Stoneside. (Deep Dive)

The Water album (2021)

- A History of Violence. Heard before. So good <3 I don't have words, I just want to enjoy the music <3

- God Save the King. Heard before. I especially love the female voice and reverb on the mixing in the beginning. And obviously the metal instrumentation. 🤘

- Integrity vs. Despair. Haven't heard before I think. Love his voice <3 And the mixing with the reverb. I love reverb. And metal. And beautiful vocals. Should have done this deep dive a long time ago.

- One Day as a Wolf. I think I've heard the instrumental before. This version had a long intro as well, though... The screams always catch me off guard... It's like my brain keeps forgetting they do those, until they do... Also, I need to look into their lyricism.

- No Shelter. Heard before, at least the instrumental. I like both versions. This instrumental is so beautiful, the juxtaposition between the pretty piano melody and the super heavy metal... Just, ah <3

- When They Took You. A slow song? Sure, I'm sure they can do even those in a way that I like it. -- Overusing the falsetto a little bit, but I liked the heavy part about halfway. The progressive nature of the song kept it interesting. And the melody he sings after the heavy bit is so pretty <3

- Terlingua. Sounds familiar, I might have heard the instrumental before. I like the humming-like sound in the background, it blocks me away from my environment. Helps me get lost in the song. This my jam <3

There's also The Water Instrumentals album which came out in 2023. I just went ahead and liked all the songs I had not yet. I'm sure they're just as good as the versions with vocals.

The Desert album (2022)

- Cold Dead Hand. It's like meditation music. The vocal sample, his vocals, the simple instrumentation, the bass.. they all feed into this feeling. Then we get metal, with screams... sure, metal meditation it is then :D

- Hell. I love and hate that little *plip* sound at the end of the beat... It's catchy, but I don't like how it feels in my ears. Luckily I can't hear it when it's under the metal... It's interesting, these screams sound different than the ones they had on The Water. It's probably the same person, just different mixing... This and the previous song both have moments, where the music gets kinda... stuck, but in a good way. The repetition and moving on and repetition and moving on is a pace I like in this kind of music anyway, it's calming. That's the rhythm I have in life as well, so it feels familiar, in a very deep, almost subconscious level...

- My Love/My Tomb. This song as well. The same structure with the overall rhythm (=exploring one melody, then the next, then the next, etc). So I might as well continue the thought process: In my life, I prefer a rhythm where I have a thing and I can hyperfocus on that until it's done. Until I've explored it enough on my own rhythm, at my own pace. When I've gotten everything out of it I want to.

- Cowboy. And then when I feel ready, I move on to the next thing to hyperfocus on. If I have a situation in life where it's all scattered, where I have to focus on multiple different things and cannot keep thinking about that one thing, I get stressed. I struggle to finish any of the things. I need that constant flow of thought around the one thing to stay focused and happy. And that's why I like prog bands like Stoneside. and Katatonia. They explore one melody or sound for the time they feel like they need to, and then they move on to the next thing. I feel at home when I listen to them.

- Pale Dawn. Here we had eargasmic metal, then calm singing with nearly zero instrumentals, then this blip blop electronic music sound, then the female vocal sample, then whispers and frantic instrumentals, etc... You see what I mean? They start a new thing when it feels right to them. They don't always stop the previous thing - unlike the human brain, music can hyperfocus on multiple things at once and create different combinations of those elements... Prog metal and my heart speak the same language...

- Apache. So calm and beautiful. 🖤

- Suicide Silence. Way too repetitive. I'm disappointed.

God of the Mountain album (2023)

- Dust Cloud. Chills 🖤 I love how this makes me feel. Feel-good hormones, the chills, breathing deeper, mind calmer.

- Once. Heard before. It is criminal these guys have under 15 000 monthly listeners. They're very talented, and with Sleep Token and Bad Omens being some of the biggest names in the past couple of years... I do not get it. 

- Animal. You'd think mainstream metal fans and prog metal fans alike would be all over this... Is it because they're so new or is the market really that oversaturated? -- Ooh, the whisper and electronic beat just... woah. Both times, tiny eargasm, mind goes blank for a second and then comes back. 🖤

- Foothills. Heard as a single before. I love it. Although, the screams on the first album are still my favorite. But these harmonies and instrumentals and everything just ah 🖤 Ok, the last screams were solid! Better than earlier in the song.

- Letters to the Afterlife. Haha, singing higher as he sings "crescendo". Distracted me for a moment, otherwise the song kept me very focused on the lyrics. I haven't slept that well this week so they aren't dawning on me, but the song is mixed in a way that still made me super focused on what he was saying.

- Avalanche. Heard before, as a single. The instrumentals especially are so nice! I just get lost in them. On the heavier side of their catalogue.

- Dirt Road. Heard before. That vocal sample! So good! -- I think this is my favorite Stoneside. song. It just has everything a person could ask for.

- Exonerate. Heard before. Also starts off quite heavy in comparison to most of their songs. I've noticed they use a lot of religious imagery in their songs. Makes sense, since their songs are, according to their bio, giving a voice to the dead. But still, this is very... American of them. A Nordic band would never. They'd be laughed off the scene. -- The distorted scream at the end - n0ice.

Dark Skies EP (2024)

Heard all before as single releases.

- Dark Skies. Oh, right, this one! This just came out. I still think it sounds like truly means it when he says "I hope you fucking die"... Which is a bit peculiar sentence now that I think about it... If all the lyrics are about people who are dead, is this about a murder..? Is the narrator a murderer?

- You're No God. The screams got better near the end! They're not bad otherwise either, for some reason I just prefer the ones on The Water over these newer ones, which is weird. Usually I prefer newer screams from any vocalist, 'cause people get better at it over time. 

- Savior. 👍 (can't think of anything to say, but I like it)

- Loveless. This is progressive as well, but in a different way than The Desert album. I'm not sure if it's polyrhythmic, but at least it sounds complex. You could listen to the same song multiple times and by just focusing on different instruments/production/lyrics each time, the song would sound different every time. 

Non-album singles

- History of Violence = A History of Violence. Title-wise, I prefer "A History of Violence". It leaves more room for other versions of this history. If it's just "History", then one can imagine it being "A history" or "The history". The vocals have some djent influence, with the rap-esque rhythmic singing?

- Summertime Sadness. Meh, not a fan of covers. Or racists. Banshee is a fan of hers as well, though. -- The beat we get about halfway is kinda cool, tho.

- iodine. More on the calmer side of their discography. Gets heavier in the end, but they have songs that do the opposite, that are heavy for most of the song's duration and then get slower and calmer in the end.

- The Balance. This one has that same djent influence. I just know that singing thing because of Jared Dines (on YouTube), the different metal subgenres video he did like a decade ago. -- The rest of the song is calmer and more melodic. Sort of meditative.

- God of the Mountain. The song, not to be confused with the album... I wonder what's up with that, why did they not include this song on the album with this title, and why did they keep that album title if this song isn't on the album..?

- Rocket Man. Elton John cover. It is an interesting pick to cover, not something you see every day.

- Last Flowers to the Gravestone (Robbie's Song). Heard before. Somehow feels much more personal than their other songs. In the breakdown in the end, the pain sounds real. They also don't usually name the people they write about... Someone asked under the YouTube video "But what happened to Robbie??" And the band responded "He went back to his biological mother." My guess is that one of the band members is a relative of Robbie's. I think Robbie was one of their son. He sings about holding him and him being his one and only, etc... RIP Robbie.

- Underwater. Another one song that draws me in the lyricism. -- Shit that screamed "What a lovely way to die" hit hard!! I had to sit down! I'm usually already sitting down, because I write my Deep Dives mainly on bus drives to work and back (it's an hour's ride and most albums are an hour, so it's perfect for that). Now I was 1,5 songs short from finishing this deep dive so I kept listening when I got off from the bus and came home. And then had to sit on the floor because wow. Those lyrics and that delivery hit hard! Spotify says I've heard it before, I have to go see how I reacted the first time, it's probably on this blog...

Closing thoughts

Amazing music. Suicide Silence is the only song I didn't like. Choosing a favorite one is impossible now, but I think as I re-listen these songs (except Suicide Silence and the covers), one or some of the songs are going to stand out to me more than others...

Interesting choices, to i.e. have an album named God of the Mountain that doesn't have the song God of the Mountain on it, to release all the songs from an album as singles but one, and renaming a song from History of Violence to A History of Violence... Either this band is 1) very deliberate and artistic about it 2) they're very indecisive and make a lot of last-minute changes 3) they're all sloppy or have ADHD and these are genuine mistakes.