Speaking of which...
BLACK ICE.
1. World 666 (Super Mario Bros. 3)
2. Ov Ice and Sloth (The Goonies II)
3. Serpent on a Mountain Cold (Snake Rattle 'n' Roll)
4. Blue Burrr ft. Stemage and Viking Guitar (Sonic the Hedgehog 3)
So what is Black Ice? It's a short, four-song EP of video game ice level music fused with black metal flavorings. You see, this past winter was coooold. It sucked. It was miserable, and it put me in a weird mood. One day, I started messing around with the Super Mario Bros. 3 World 6 theme in a sort of Behemoth-style snippet to test some new guitar tones, and it all clicked. Within a couple of months, I had the thing arranged and recorded.
My past three albums (Mega Man 2, Belmont, and Ledjent of Zelda) had their ups and downs while writing and recording them. Broken fingers, ripped vocal chords, writer's block (I had major writer's block on Ledjent). For some reason, Black Ice was smooth sailing from the beginning. I think part of that was knowing exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. With Ledjent, it was like "oh, I've got this great pun and a few riffs! This'll be great! --- 6 months later --- uhhhhhh crap what was I doing?"
Really the hardest part was picking the tunes. I can say that there were some Zelda and Mega Man tunes that were on the short list, as well as a Metroid Prime 2 track. But I felt what I chose was a solid slate of classic themes and deeper cuts (how fuckin' rad is that Snake Rattle 'n' Roll tune?). Also, a huge thanks to Brian Pickens for the amazing artwork, as always -- to Stemage and Viking Guitar for laying down such slick, beautiful solos on Blue Burrr -- and to Terry Smith for mastering the hell out of it.
Stream the album below.
Download Black Ice right here!
