Track By Tracks: Sargassus - The Albatross (2022)

1. Stepping Out of Time:

Rokio and Leskinen packed their gear and headed to a summer cottage to write new songs. Initially, there was only the opening riff that transformed into a full song during intensive jamming and brainstorming. The song features an interesting tempo and time signature change during the verses and continues in the earlier single Tiamat’s style with the dooming ending. The lyrics describe the time collapsing under the meaninglessness of itself and are provided to the listener in different styles of growls and layering.

2. Canine Passage:

The second was born in the same songwriting session as Stepping Out of Time, and the means of composing it was exactly the same. The idea was to keep the tempo slow whilst adding some fast double bass to create a very crushing and heavy feel once the atmosphere of the intro had settled in. The pressuring weight is released in the chorus that transforms into a much lighter progressive-influenced atmosphere with only clean vocals. Towards the end, the song goes through its third metamorphosis and turns into an almost rock-style fast hammering. Leskinen discovered the greatness of the song that others had known all along only when the vocals and bass were added! Now the song is one of his favorites.

3. The Albatross:

The guitars and drums of The Albatross were yet again composed almost entirely by live jamming. When the song was finished, Rokio was instantly convinced that it would be the band’s best piece so far! The song has it all: a cool intro, clean vocals, and growls, interesting bass lines coupled with fast fills, time signature changes, and an epic solo. When it comes to tempo and time signatures with Sargassus, they are never premeditated and are purely something that is created at the moment and seems to work. With the drums, The Albatross is the most difficult song up to date too. The lyrics were initiated by Rokio and Leskinen this time: Stenman was asked to write lyrics about the 1970s fabel Jonathan Livingston. Stenman took the challenge, read the book and wrote psychedelic lyrics about seagulls that teleport, fly at ridiculous speeds, and glow, just to discover that other guys hadn’t even read the book themselves. To make things even more complicated for Stenman, the guys wanted the song to be named not after the seagulls of the book, but albatrosses. Here’s a song you should definitely check out!