Track By Tracks: Heterochrome - From The Ashes (2022)

1. Baraye Farda, For Tomorrow:

One of the last songs we put on the album, this track started as Arash was pondering on Climate Change, Global Warming, and the general state of danger our world and home planet is in. After writing the first verse and chorus he sent it to Mida, who instantly fell in love with it even before hearing what it meant to Arash. Mida immediately got to writing the second verse, drawing from the sociopolitical environment of Iran and letting Arash know they need the song in their album. This is one of all their favorite tracks, coming from different backgrounds, it can be interpreted differently for any individual listener.

2. Badbadak, The Flight:

January of 2020 marked the tragedy of the Iranian Government shutting down the Ukrainian Passenger Airplane killing many of our loved ones including one of Mida’s old schoolmates. In the grief following that loss, Mida drew from an old school song called Badbadak (The Kite) and wrote this song. The music video represents the same suffering.

3. Rage Against The People:

One of the more aggressive songs on the album deals with heartbreak and trust issues and the inner struggle caused by these feelings.

4. WOTB:

The only instrumental track in the album that Arash started writing a short while after he left Iran and was faced with a plethora of new challenges coming his way.

5. The Bearing:

One of the few tracks remaining from the original lineup of this album, The bearing was written by Mida in trying to process all that is growing up in Iran as a queer non-binary lesbian. Bearing the weight of oppression and ignorance for years, fighting for their right to love and live as who they are, all that pent-up anger came out in the lyrics. Years later, as it’s released, this song still rings true for them.

6.Transition:

As the title suggests, this is an intro for the B-side of the album. Trying to set the mood for the next track Time’s up.

7. Time’s Up:

This song consists of two stories about the difficulties of love and the emotional devastation that comes from it. The first part deals with a deep sorrow from the mentioned devastation in Arash’s life, and the second part recalls a memory from Mida. Arash wrote this song shortly after a life-changing period of time and brought it forward, even though it sounded different than their previous work, sounding a lot more simple and raw.

Mida’s life story sounds like something out of a telenovela! A very progressive one, but a telenovela all the same. Over the years that this album was made, Mida had to say goodbye to their fiancé many times, sending them off to the US alone, because of the travel ban. The second verse of this song was written on one of these “goodbye nights”. And the pain of saying goodbye, feeling your soul catching fire, and burning with love is reflected in the lyrics. The inevitability of heartbreak in love is a universal language that almost everyone can speak.

8. Through Evil Within:

This is probably the most revised track on the album! What a wild journey it’s been! Almost everyone has those “talks” with themselves. Sitting down with your inner demons, your darker side, name it what you want. That battle of trying to gain back control over your brain and dealing with your mental health. Anxiety, depression, panic attacks, PTSD, almost everyone has to deal with at least one of these, and yet, they rarely get talked about. This is our way of trying to make sense of our version of mental health.

9. Sargardan, Wanderer:

One of the first and most fun songs Mida and Arash wrote for this album! They both wanted to play with more classical Persian themes and you can hear those elements in both the lyrics and the tunes. This song tries to capture the essence of Alternative metal in the band’s sound.

10. Outlaw:

The year is 2017. Mida has been planning on joining their fiancé in the US but the Travel Ban is ordered by Donald Trump and once again, Mida finds their life up in the air because of ignorant decisions by ignorant politicians who never have to pay the price for their choices. What is that old song? “The gods will roll the dice, their hearts as cold as ice, and someone way down here loses someone dear!” The news hit them hard and the lyrics basically wrote themselves! Possibly one of the band’s longest songs, you can hear the anger and frustration in every line.