Singled Out: Solemn Vision's Bane And Benumbed

Keavin Wiggins | 10-23-2023

Solemn Vision just released their new album, 'Despite The Rise Of The Sun', and to celebrate we asked Carlos Crowcell to tell us about the song "Bane And Benumbed". Here is the story:

"Bane And Benumbed" was one of the first songs we wrote when we started meeting up again in the summer of 2020. The pandemic was ongoing, so it was just Mauricio, Anthony, and I meeting up at our private studio.

We would show up with bleach wipes, sanitize everything before and after playing, and be masked up most of the time. It was rough, but just being able to get in the rehearsal space after months of sitting at home was extremely cathartic. We showed up one day to work on a different song we had been writing, but while Mauricio was warming up, new ideas just started pouring out of him, and then Anthony and I also, like crazy. In just a few hours, we wrote the first section of the song, all the way up until the first build up before Mauricio's guitar solo, and over the next few sessions finished the song's overall structure.

Fast forward a year later, we were gearing up to head to the Westfall Recording Company to start working on the new album. Mauricio had just put the finishing touches on his solo, and Kadin had only written a small section of his solo at this point since the song had been shelved for a while in order to finish the other tracks that made it onto the album, and also because it was very difficult for Kadin to get out to NYC to help us write in-person, during the pandemic. He actually wanted to cut his whole solo section in half and shorten it, but I asked him to hold on and see what happened at the studio, as I really liked the switch up in the rhythm guitar and drums that happens under his solo. While recording the album, we were sleeping over at the studio, and one day while Kadin was going through the track, he figured out the rest of it the night before recording it, and it turned out to be his favorite solo he's ever written. Back in the album's pre-production phase, it was actually his least favorite track - in fact, he thought it was going to end up being filler - but now, after all the additions and nuances that came out during the recording process, it's one of his favorites on the album.

The song itself is a nice balance between classic and modern melodic death metal. Anthony was able to get creative and really let loose on the more technical side of his basslines, and Aaron topped it all off with some beautifully haunting vocal melodies that everyone in the band immediately loved. Aaron's lyrics are a take on sleep paralysis, and its effects. We took the name of the album from a line in the chorus. "Frozen by shade despite the rise of the sun. My body and soul, no longer as one. Blood feels like water, unable to run. A nightmarish wave, but in slumber undone."

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more about the album here