| / What started as a quick follow up to 2017s ‘Ending Life Slowly’ soon became more of a deep therapy vessel for me to channel everything that was happening in my life. From raising my first kid, to losing my mother, life sort of chewed me up & spit me out more times than I can remember over the past few years. Instead of pushing through a production from start to finish, I was only able to work on this in bits & pieces. Months turned into years, & eventually the album came together, but not without evolving into something I had not originally intended.
Case in point, the final track ‘Sorrow & Sunlight’ started off as your standard sounding evil metal riff. Soon after, as cancer started to slowly suffocate the life out of my own mother, I used that song to express my experience. I reworked the entire piece to reflect my own depiction of what it was like to lose a parent at such an agonizingly slow pace. Anger, chaos, confusion, hope, peace, & eventual acceptance. It’s all there sonically, just as it was living through it.
Other aspects of life became amplified after that, & in turn were again reflected back into the album as a whole. Lyrics re-worked, solos re-recorded, keyboard arrangements re-arranged. Was it all necessary? Probably not, but it helped me get through some of the most difficult moments I’ve ever had to endure.
The title itself is quite indicative of how this journey has been for me. A Grimoire of Oak & Shadow represents a journal of strength & sadness. By no means an easy chapter in my life, but one that I felt compelled to capture in both my words & my music. /origin
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