Track By Tracks: The Aphelion - Nascence (2024)

About the album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):

EVAN: Lyrically Nascence tells the story of a man’s descent into madness and his own mind in response to the mundanity and repetitiveness of the world around him.

As our protagonist loses his grip, he begins to allow his relationships with those he cares about to deteriorate, and becomes increasingly paranoid; at first suspecting that those who love him are hurting him, being unfaithful, and eventually that they’re merely actors who are staging his life. As he stalks his wife one day, he is confronted by a homeless man who tells him not to trust his reality and that everyone around him is not what they seem. In response, he snaps completely and begins to run from his life. What happens next? You’ll have to wait until Senescence to find out.

While the album is not autobiographical, I made a point of drawing from life experience where I could in order to emotionally charge my writing and performances, as well as to create authenticity while still telling a fictional story.

JAMES: Musically, the album begins with a more accessible, prog-rock-influenced sound. Songs towards the beginning of the album (Nascence, The Seed of Doubt) are calmer and catchier, and feature lots of grand pianos, violin, and horns. As the album goes on, the sound slowly becomes more dissonant, heavy, and layered with organs, strings, distorted guitars, and synthesizers. These shifts in genre match progressions in the story told by the lyrics, and the growing dissonance and chaos represent the protagonist losing his mind as the story unfolds.

Track by track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY):

1. PRENASCENT:

Prenascent is an instrumental overture made up of passages from the other songs on the album. It introduces all of the main musical motifs and sets the tone for what's to come. While it has no lyrics, Prenascent could be considered the birth of our protagonist.

2. NASCENCE:

Nascence is the title track of the album and lyrically represents the beginning of the story and the mental state we find our protagonist in. He is afraid of dying and even more than that, he is afraid of having lived an unremarkable life. Musically, it begins with a beautiful orchestral passage of grand piano, horns, and strings, with soft, somber vocals and jazzy solo passages. However, the song takes a turn for the darker, weaving through extremely intense and technical instrumental passages before arriving at a grandiose operatic chorus and a sweeping guitar masterclass before going out with heavy riffs, blast beats, and a stunning piano finale.

3. THE SEED OF DOUBT:

Musically, this song takes influences from the 70s prog rock era. It features an organ solo and guest appearances from Brian Asselin and Eric Littlewood on saxophone and trumpet. At this point in the story, the protagonist meets the love of his life, and while their new love is beautiful and for a time he is fulfilled and happy, eventually the relationship sours as he becomes afraid of her hurting him, and grows distrustful and controlling.

4. FRAGILITY:

Fragility is where the first real cracks in the protagonist’s psyche begin to form. At first he suspects, and then accuses his wife of cheating, telling her that she is the reason he’s so unhappy and the root of his mental illness. The man awakens the next morning remembering nothing but violence, and yet his wife lays sleeping peacefully next to him and nothing is out of place. He begins to wonder if he has had a vision of death, and whether it was his death or hers that he saw, and fears that the worst has yet to come. Musically, the song is a blend of classical orchestration, art rock sensibilities, and heavy riffs.

5. THE HEAVY MIST:

At this point, the protagonist’s paranoia has begun expanding to his mother and his friends, and he begins to realize he has no memories of his upbringing or much of his past. Musically, this song is of two halves - it begins with a rocky alternating meter riff before soothing the listener into a false sense of security with beautiful chord progressions and vocal layering. From there it brings the energy back up into a more straight-ahead hard rock sound and eventually a death metal reprise of the first verse, setting the stage for Flight.

6. FLIGHT:

Flight is by far the heaviest song on the album, an homage to thrash metal and prog death giants such as Gojira. It moves at a near break-neck pace across its nearly seven-minute track time across blistering solos, thrashy riffs, and pummeling breakdowns. Lyrically, the protagonist has been shaken into fight or flight and tries to escape his life and loved ones. He is chased out onto the street, believing he is being chased by everyone in the neighbourhood. He is tackled to the ground, and forced back inside, where he laments that he is now alone.

7. THE INTERLOPER:

This track is one of the more musically intricate songs on the album. It has tons of keyboard layers, polyrhythms, and time signature changes. At this point in the story he has been left alone and escapes again, but this time decides to stalk his wife and prove that she is unfaithful and plotting against him. Just as he believes he’s got her, he is accosted by a homeless man who starts to tell him detailed things about his past that he had long forgotten.

8. DESERTER:

Deserter is a culmination of all of the sounds across this album and features indulgent non-linear songwriting tied together with catchy choruses. The song pushes each member to its limit at one point or another across its runtime and features complex polymers and incredibly fast passages. It is the finale of the album, but a cliffhanger of sorts lyrically, as it tells the perspective of our protagonist’s response to a total stranger telling him details about his life and not to trust anything. The protagonist has more questions, but the homeless man disappears before he can answer, which causes the protagonist to snap and begin to run for the forest.

What happens next remains to be seen in the second half, Senescence.