The Band
Story
2008 - The mandatory prequel
'Twas dark times back then. Julien had lost yet another keyboard player in his gothic metal cover band and feared never to find the right one. Then enters Maxime, a high school friend. He loved metal, and smelt of elderberries. He took a synth, and learned the ways and arcanes of the keys.
Dare I tell the extraordinary tale that ensued ? Romance, joy, but also bitterness, and treason. I won’t, 'cause this story is for another time. Anyway, they ended up botching Sensorium on a weekly basis, and all was good.
2012-13 - The Beginning
Time passed. They parted ways and left town for their studies, it could have been the end of it. But like we say, some things have to die so they can be reborn.
In Grenoble, Julien joined a group of Stupidly-Rapid-Metal, in which played a swell guy named Amaury. He too, loved metal, and smelt of elderberries. When, by an extraordinary turn of events, they both came back to Lyon for their thesis, their fate was sealed. Maxime had since long came back from the New World, and was eager to jam. They installed a rehearsal room at Julien’s, and started to play covers of Alestorm, Dream Theater, and yes, Epica once again.
2014 - Attack of the Clowns
Life was joyful back then. Every monday, the three lads were having a pint or more (definitely more) at a bar now closed. Youth was on their side, and hangovers a distant concept that only happens to other people.
There began to flourish the idea of Récif Écho Rail. Under a massive dose of alcohol, they wrote stories about characters and concepts which were frightening them as kids. In addition to that, the rehearsals were more and more just a pretext for improv with the stories in their minds.
It was time to bring forth a singer. Alexia heeded the call. It was on saint Patrick’s day, which is certainly no coincidence. She promised to kick their asses at SoulCalibur. As it turned out, she didn’t even know to play it, but she definitely smelt of elderberries. They bought some more gear together, and thanks to the Open Source community, learned the ways of sound engineering with Ardour and Calf. All the four united, they wrote and recorded Récif Écho Rail.
2015 - The Phantom Bassist
Once the album recorded, an itch started to grow. Their songs needed some live representation. But alas, Amaury was both bass and guitar player in the studio back then. Another call was made. This time, they wanted a shredder.
This is the moment Pierre enters the story. After 2 months of hardcore training, he was able to perform the setlist, and so they went on. Quickly, the band found its comfort, and added lots of theatrical elements to the show. Many skits were played alongside the songs, in which a certain dose of improv was needed. The aim was to constantly propose a new show.
For the two following years, the band had presented puppet shows, aerobic classes, satanic rituals, and some Pokémon-related nonsense.
2016 - The Guitar Strikes Back
What was just a distant menace at first revealed itself to be an awful and undeniable truth: Amaury was suffering from a severe case of under-overdub. As they didn't have an amp that goes all the way to eleven, a second guitar was required on set to overcompensate. The songs had to be played by two guitarists, and not just one.
This time, it's a friend of Alexia's, Rémi, who joined the crew to take on the bass, freeing Amaury to go back to his beloved instrument. Passionate about video edition and storytelling, Rémi added to their growing arsenal the ability to film and edit footage of their own creation.
Between the lives, Julien and Amaury were continuously learning how to record their instrument better. A re-recorded version of Récif Écho Rail was released, alongside a making-of video of their first adventures put together my Maxime.
2017 - The Dark Times
DON'T MENTION THE WAR
2018 - The Great Crusade
After Alexia went to live in Paris and the dreadful events of the civil war, the crew lost Pierre as well.
Julien went back to the studio, and in his madness, started horrid experiments involving voices, drums, triggers, amps, all assorted in the most perverse, ungodly ways.
In the meantime, Rémi directed the video of Benthic grudges, which was filmed in Juliens's Granny's attic.
The quest for a new singer would take quite some time. I reckon the band would have a few words to say to the nitwit who came up with the saying "Plenty of fish in the sea".
In the ashes of it all, they pursued the project of a new album. Ideas were written, riffs and themes were discovered. Echoes began to ring in the depths of the caves of Dhugud-Dûm, as Maxime and Amaury took the lead on writing, and Julien concentrated on the hardware and lyrics. Finally, an ungodly pact was formed with the darkest authorities, bringing back the soul of their beloved front-woman for the recording sessions...
2020 - Nothing emerges from nothingness, amirite?
That was a weird year, but we had plenty of time on our hands. While calling each other almost every day, we finally found the time to record what had been actually written and more or less finished a year back!
Production ramped up, with new tracks being added every day to the project. Keyboards were done before May, and (simulated) drums, bass & guitar followed shortly.
During the summer, as the world was still healing, work on lyrics started. A first draft was built by Maxime, upon witch Julien improved upon. Everything was ready for...
2021-22 - The great recording
Finally, everything could be brought together. But we were so deep and the project took so much time that we weren't going to refrain from adding one more year of work.
While lead singing & choirs were recorded, it became obvious that simulated guitars & drums were not going to make the thing work. It was feeling too robotic. So we went on recording the entierety of the instruments, even though we did not have access to any home studio anymore.
On the voices side, we realized we'd need some extra voice actors, considering the scale of the story being told, and the amount of characters that were participating in.
That's where Angelina enters the ring. Se too, smelt of elderberries, and added a much needed diversity on the second half of the album.
2023 - Are we there yet?
As it turns out, post-production is not small work. Mixing and mastering took a hefty amount of time. The task got quite complex as the number of tracks per song had exploded since our last work. I won't even mention the number of voices used for each choir section!
In the meantime, several efforts have been made to embark a graphic designer on our adventure. As usual, the task took lots of energy and time as we always do with human relationships: we always try to work with people we're having a strong connection with.
After several failed attempts, we ended up using AI tools to get to our goals, which, to our surprise, exceeded our expectations!
Now at the end of this year, we are feeling hopeful as we're finishing the last details to get the album deployed online and available to you all.
Retired
