Track By Tracks: Apogean - Into Madness (2021)

The Toronto-based technical death metal band Apogean will be introducing themselves to metal loving peoples worldwide through a new EP named Into Madness. It’s based on a conceptual narrative that is intensely disturbing on a planetary scale — in the band’s description, a story “of the fall from the heights of sanity, to the very depths of madness and all that can be experienced on this journey,” with the music carrying the listener on “this path of knowledge, loss, and resurgence”.

Apogean drew their inspiration from such groups as Soreption, The Faceless, Obscura, Necrophagist, The Black Dahlia Murder, Revocation, Archspire, and The Zenith Passage, and it’s a safe bet that fans of those bands will thoroughly enjoy what 'Into Madness' as a whole have to offer. to the very depths of madness and all that can be experienced on this journey.

Apogean wants to take the listener on this path of knowledge, loss, and resurgence.

With Dexter and Gabe on guitars creating that cutting feel, Robert with that low end, Spike spinning the story and Jacob on the percussion front, Apogean are looking to pierce the veil and take any willing, on the journey of the mind.

Drum engineering by Luc Chiasson

Drum editing by Evan Sammons

Mixed and Mastered by Zack Ohren

Under Blood Blast Distribution

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released June 11, 2021

1. INTO MADNESS:

Into Madness, the title track of the EP and the beginning of the adventure for the listener.

Guided by a chorus of panic and fear, riffs scream with the need to escape as the journey begins with the realization that reality itself is slipping away.

The destination...Madness, and the depiction of the mental manipulations take hold from there.

Flashes of red churn as drums pound, echoes from the depths of this fall from sanity become apparent.

Culminating in acceptance in this new form… this new insanity.

Lyrics:

I feel this slipping from me,

this mask of sanity.

Visions like incisions crawling through all I see,

manipulating me.

I can feel it this tearing of my pitiful psyche,

excavating this curse of common bond.

Aggravating this sense of schizophrenic phobia,

losing reason to this clouded confusion.

Neurons do not connect,

the whole concept of thought deranged.

This leading, this needing, this bleeding in the brain.

Neurons do not connect,

the whole concept of thought is deranged.

Your fear is leading to this needing, constant bleeding in brain.

I should have seen this coming.

(this descent into madness)

All the world around me is crumbling.

(losing my grasp on fear)

Flashes of red fill my head

(this descent into madness)

As I continue falling

(wish I could disappear)

I should have seen this coming.

(this descent into madness)

All the world around me is crumbling.

(losing my grasp on fear)

Flashes of red fill my head

(this descent into madness)

Wish I could disappear

Neurons do not connect,

the whole concept of thought is deranged.

Your fear is leading to this needing, constant bleeding in brain.

Neurons do not connect,

the whole concept of thought deranged.

This leading, this needing, this bleeding in the brain.

Flashes of red, fill my head as I fall!

(descending)

I should have seen this, coming from afar I fall!

(descending)

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from Into Madness, track released June 11, 2021

Written by Dexter Forbes

Additional guitar leads by Gabriel Silva Castro

Additional guitar leads by Daniel Sutarz

Additional orchestral elements by Grant Robert Craven and Luc Chiasson

Lyrics and vocals by Michael McConnell

2. CHRONO:

Chrono, the second song on the EP and story-wise, the time frame and setting of the world in which the EP was created; Chrono sets the feel as the ‘soiled crypt’ from where all this ’emanates’. The sharp guitars and chaotic changing riffs help to cement this track as the story unfolds, leading the listener ever onward.

Lyrics:

The path of life has been reversed entirely

Because of this alien’s blood curse.

Eruptions of the plasma calling cross the atmosphere

Tectonic transformations reforming the hemispheres

Ground zero emanating, poisoning the realms below

As seas burn dry and ashes fly we’re waiting on extinction.

From this soiled crypt, this emanates.

Poisoning the Earth, extinction begins.

And from a tear in sky in the sky falls

A corpse of ancient biology.

A shattering of the Earth

The force of Chaos machinery descending.

Once planted, distorted, the land falls.

A corpse falls onto humanity.

A transformative veil of disease

Reforming DNA with filth violently, endlessly.

Watch as this transforms into nothing new.

Particles block the sun

Refusing any entity to live in

The life giving light.

Black poison fills the sea,

As chasms grow and then crush so deep

We cannot fucking breath.

Well we can never go back,

We can never survive,

This is nothing we need.

This is over, we die.

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from Into Madness, track released March 19, 2021

Written by Gabriel Silva Castro and Dexter Forbes

Lyrics and vocals by Michael McConnell

3. PALE MOON:

Pale Moon is about gaining both the knowledge and the acceptance of the madness surrounding us all.

A glimpse into this world and the myriad of beings and characters already at this state, and a celebration of the freedom from sanity for all.

For, only after this can we truly dance among the stars, uncaring, our spirits unwavering.

Lyrics:

What you’ve encountered this far has broke you down,

From the depleted shell you once were.

But now with your ascendance beyond the thousand lies,

Truth bleeding in the night.

Bodies casting shadows in the night,

Against the fire and its light.

I wander under Pale Moon.

Defiant of all of life and its plight,

This blood is on my hands tonight.

But only under Pale Moon.

Under this frail light, come alive,

All the creatures of the night.

Become a witness to the offerings under altered hues.

A bystander on the Council of Night and the alternate truths that it skews.

These spirits twirling all around,

In shadows can be found,

In shadows only, can be found.

We dance among the stars,

Uncaring,

We dance among the stars,

Our spirits unwavering,

We dance among the stars,

Uncaring,

With souls on fire.

Be counted among the ones who know

Shrouded in this hidden knowledge.

This is the last chance you’ll ever have to be ensconced in this crowd.

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from Into Madness, track released March 30, 2021

Written by Dexter Forbes

Guest guitar solo by Jesse Michel

Additional guitar leads by Gabriel Silva Castro

Additional orchestral elements by Grant Robert Craven

Lyrics and vocals by Michael McConnell

4. THROUGH VAST EXISTENCE:

Through Vast Existence was written as a glimpse into the mind of the subject, as they and the listener journey past the veil of reality and into the chaos now visible around them, and leaving themselves as they were behind to carry on in this new vast existence.

Lyrics:

Distortions beginning to grow,

creating this black hole.

It’s pull grows ever stronger,

No way to turn us back from here.

we’ve come this far to see this appear.

Trajectory errors, losing heading, off course.

Pulsing kinetic energy, move form.

Headless of warning systems,

Forward to the void,

Through cold nothingness

We venture onward,

Through vast dead systems,

Through silence’s meaning,

Through vast existence, we travel on.

To the point of no return

This sinking feeling setting in,

I can feel the inertia bending our direction.

Headless of warning systems,

Forward to the void,

Through cold nothingness

We venture onward,

Through vast dead systems,

Through silence’s meaning,

Through vast existence, we travel on.

To traverse the Event Horizon.

The Event Horizon.

Millions of hues casting patterns dancing cross your mind.

Millions of hues casting patterns dancing cross the sky.

Locked between these stars,

I can see time’s scars.

(I can see time’s scars)

Co-ordinates lost oxygen wearing fucking thin.

To traverse the stars,

Through the Event Horizon.

Millions of hues casting patterns dancing cross your mind.

Millions of hues casting patterns dancing cross the sky.

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from Into Madness, track released April 9, 2021

Written by Dexter Forbes

Additional guitar leads by Gabriel Silva Castro

Additional orchestral elements by Grant Robert Craven

Lyrics and vocals by Michael McConnell

5. VACUOUS:

The closing of this tale of transformation and wonder, darkness and enlightenment.

Vacuous represents the culmination of experiences interpreted throughout the journey that has finally run its course.

A beautifully chaotic choir of riff and rhythm accompanies these thoughts as they question the weary adventurer.

Solo's prodding them to ask of themselves what is reality and what is perception?

It teases an introspective look at the past, present and future through a now enlightened lens. Hopefully illuminating what is yet to come now that one has traversed… Into Madness

Lyrics:

Your knowledge it enfolds, to the end.

the portal is never-ending

Your vacuous soul may learn in time.

The truth hidden from your eyes,

You fool.

Naked to the open truth of this.

Hiding from the splendor of Abyss.

Have you the eyes to see, all of this reality.

Or are you blind to all that's intertwined.

Reactionary versions.

This knowledge bleeds into your soul,

it leads you places dead and cold.

A warning from the elden ones,

your vacuity now undone.

Just behind the veil you'll find the miracle,

just behind the veil you'll find the fear is terrible.

Cast of lies, be set free.

No longer, deceived.

See yourself in new light, it's so bright.

From the other side of living,

This precious time, you've learned.

And look how far you've climbed,

from the other side.

Have you the eyes to see, all of this reality,

Or are you blind, to all that's intertwined.

Reactionary versions of timeline's course,

demonstrating chaos and discourse,