Because I'm awesome and a mod (read: God) I get to make my very own band thread!

I just recently pressed and released a full-length album under the project name Deadhead Roses. The album it titled Zastruga and I wrote, played, programmed, recorded, mixed, and mastered everything myself and want to share it with you guys.

You can call it experimental rock/metal as its got its backbone in that but it also pulls in a lot of other influences. If you're a fan of Isis, Ulver, Radiohead, Tool, Sleepytime Gorilla Museum, Celion Dion, King Crimson, or Ricky Martin then you'll most likely dig my shit, but either way you should give it a listen!

You can hear a few tracks up at www.myspace.com/deadheadroses (I would recommend the tracks "Torpor" and "Lotus" for ya'll) and can
grab a CD for $10 at the awesome CDbaby. There is a 40% discount* if you purchase more than one CD.

Give it a listen and tell me what you think. BUY MY ALBUM OR I'LL FIST YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING FAMILY!!

*CDbaby offers a 40% discount if you purchase more than one copy of the CD so if you know people that would be into this shit you could buy a few copies of the album for $4, sell them for $8 or $10 (or however much you want, since they're YOURS) and actually make some money. If you bought 5 copies and sold them for $10 each, you'd make $30 fucking dollars. What other band offers you the ability to do that?

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Seriously, no one's checked this out enough to respond?

Safe to say, Dyldo, I've just ordered my copy. Looking forward to it arriving!

Everybody should check out Dylan's previous band, Synergist, as well.

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Yeah people, WHAT THE FUCK!? Like or hate, let me know what you think.

Thanks for your support, John! Your family's orifices are safe for now. Please let me know what you think of the entire package and even review it on the CDbaby site if you want.

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Lotus' opening riff wanted to make me close the window, but the rest of the song was likeable enough. Thing that stould out the most somehow were the drums.

Hif absolutely kicked my ass. Loved the climactic ending. The rest I'll check out when I get back from schoo'.

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Aw, you don't like riffs in 13/4? That's a first as people have seemed to really like that riff, but I'm glad the rest of the song was digable and that you enjoyed HIF! You should hear the track "Glowing" as its got a much more dramatic 'climax'. I can send it to you if you'd like. I'm interested to hear what you have to say about the rest of the tracks that are up.

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Well isn't this just a tittybanggonuts.

Let's see now...

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This isn't going to be as abominably awful as that Hand Over Blacks shit, is it? Finals are almost over, I'll give this a listen soon.

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So yeah, continued listening, and where, to me, Lotus and Hif were "good but I wouldn't really buy the album" sort of tracks, Torpor drew me over that "buy the album"-line.
Starts out kind of Isis-y, then Tool-y, and a wonderful ending.

Too bad I have to save up for another basshead

Oh and, I get the name Zastruga, but why the cover-art?

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My computer speakers aren't hooked up right now, but I'll check it out later. Sounds like it could be interesting.

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it does not really suck but at the same time its not really listenable. Like you said, I'm nor sure who would like it unless they are fans of the exact same music.

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Sorry to hear you two aren't crazy about it. They make great coasters!

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Read my post again plz.

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Ah, missed that. The cover art is an illustration from Milton's Paradise Lost by Gustave Dore. The picture depicts Angels casting out Satan which I used because it resonates with the name Deadhead Roses, the act of shedding dying/dead/unfruitful/unwanted layers, so it has to do more with the band name rather than the album's. I considered having it self-titled, but I felt that "zastruga" really communicated the force behind the album while Dore's illustration did the same for the band name.

And fuck your bass head! Your bass head don't have to eat!

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No, but I have to basshead.

But as mentioned, I'm liking it, and growing to like it more actually.

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Glad to hear. And their are 4 more tracks just waiting to help that tumor grow!

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"ABC!

Always!

Be!

Closing!"

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Arrived yesterday so I gave it a couple of spins on the bus into work today. A very solid effort, Dylan! There was a clear "side A" and "side B" to these ears, with the more metallic side A coming to a close with HIF.

Even though I wasn't too fond of the violin flourishes at first, they began to fit in nicely upon the second listen, most notably in "Lotus."

I have to say, you really earn your corn with side B's beautifully haunting ambience, particularly on "Glowing," the standout track for me. The orchestration and composition on this side are first rate.

It'll be interesting to see what roads you travel down in the future with this.

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Thanks John! I'm very happy to hear that you like it. And you're spot-on about their being two sides of the album, both correctly described, with HIF being the transition point.

Glowing is one of the tracks I'm most happy with, particularly because of how the ending came together. The basic skeleton of the song was actually made during an ICS meeting and I eventually made it into its current state. That 'beat' that comes in at 4:04 is actually a clip from a field recording of some Cambodian women shoveling rice that I mixed into beat.

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This is gonna make me sound like a scene kid, but hire a female vocalist for this shit. I'm serious. A woman's voice would fit this music sooooooo well.

Liked Lotus especially, but Torpor was also good. The other two were okay, but didn't tickle my ball bag. EDIT: really digging the power chord patterns at the end of HIF.

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Thanks Chris, I'm very happy to hear you're enjoying it. I know I said this before, but I'll put up some more tracks on the myspace today. Judging by what you enjoyed most, you will probably really enjoy the frighteningly manic track 'Consternation'. I'll post when shits up.

I'd love to have a female vocalist to colab with, but until Bjork and Jarboe get there act together, I'll just have to go it alone. I actually heard that comment a lot with my last band, Synergist. We tried to get one, too, but couldn't find anyone fitting so we remained instrumental (except for the very last song we wrote, which I sang on but we never released it to the public).

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I put Consternation up. It was actually the first track I wrote/recorded for the project.

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I like it, what did you use to record it?

Thanks! I used a Presonus Firepod for the interface and Cubase for the recording software. For electronic shit I used FL Studio, Reason, DKFH, and some homemade instruments (like my Heaven Evacuation Alarm System). My computer is a shitty old Dell that I didn't even upgrade to 2 GB Ram and 2.6 GHz (which should be the bare minimum) until the later stages of mastering. The mics I used were Shure SM-58 + SM-57 and Rode NT5s. The 57 and NT5 combination for guitar work as a really great pair. My guitar rig is a Mesa Dual Rec head with a Marshal 60's lead cab and a Line 6 Verbzilla pedal (the best fucking reverb EVER) and the guitars used were Jackson SMSLG soloist and a Telecaster. The bass/rig I borrowed from a friend and was some kind of musicman that was ran through the head and straight into the Firepod (can't remember the head's manufactuer).

I'm not kidding about using such a crippled Dell. Some of the songs would take 5ish minutes to load and I even had to 'warm up' some of the songs which basically consisted of letting the song play through a few times so that I could actually hear the tracks. If I didn't, the tracks would have horrible lagging, popping, and other weird stuff.

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"Consternation" is track 3 right? If so it reminds me a lot of recent Capricorns, which is a good thing.

I thought any vocals whatsoever in Synergist would have sounded weird!

Chris: Have you heard any of the second half of the record? I'm thinking of "Glowing" in particular.

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Yarp, track 3. I haven't heard much of Capricorns, I'll check them out.

I agree for the most part, but sometimes I feel "Alongside the Farce" is begging for vocals. Oh well, bit too late now! Shit, I was still in high school when we wrote that song!

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I've been listening to the material on your MySpace page for the past couple of days, and think it's fucking great, all the more for the fact that it's a one-man project.

HIF is the one I've been listening to most often, can't get enough of that shit, son! The vocals are superb, especially during the verses (?). I quite like the line "scalpel down, blood up, let it drain to a cup...".

Do you have any live video/audio?