Phaeton shares new album, Between Two Worlds
Canada’s Phaeton and their second expansive album, Between Two Worlds. They anticipate taking their listeners through space and time and feel a complete visceral release that can only be found through progressive metal. They consider this full-length to be a major step up for them and have focused on being sharp and clever to grab people’s ears with melody lines of the twin guitars instead of vocals. They continue to share their excitement for the release:
“We pushed ourselves as musicians, we pushed ourselves as instrumentalists, and we pushed ourselves as a unit to create something that had to at least be on par with the first album – and we surpassed all our expectations. We’re hoping that fans of prog-metal find something enjoyable in these tunes and will urge them into repeat listening, and we hope all the twists and turns and corners and swerves we’ve woven together will surprise and delight. And with us re-energized for live performance, we aim to convince the world that you can say so much…without saying a word.”
There is certainly no ‘sophomore slump’ happening with Between Two Worlds, which will accompany listeners on an emotional journey – the classic goal of all instrumental progressive metal. This release is just a taste of what’s to come from Phaeton, who has more material being written.
Listen to Between Two Worlds below and learn more about Phaeton via our Five Questions With segment.
Care to introduce yourself to our readers?
I am Ferdy Belland, bassist for Phaeton, from the woolly wilds of Cranbrook, British Columbia! Our band is filled out by drummer Colin Righton and our two guitarists, Daniel Airth, and Kevin Thiessen. We’ve been writing and performing instrumental prog-metal since the Spring of 2017 and look forward to further adventures in cosmic rock.
Tell us a bit about your most recent release.
Between Two Worlds is our second album, and it’s been a long time coming. We recorded it over the winter of 2019-2020 and had everything wrapped up, mixed and mastered, and packaged, by the first week of March – and then it was Pandemic Time. All the doors slammed shut, and everything came to a grinding halt. And so we did our best to keep sane until the All-Clear whistle was blown, so to say that we’ve been chomping at the bit to get the album released to the world is a horribly crushing understatement. But I suppose all good things come to those who wait, hey? We’re very proud of this album. Our compositional strength was already fully sculpted with our debut album, and this was an improvement on the model. We even pulled off a nine-minute epic which ended up being the title track. The rapid-fire riffery and the spiraling solos, and the octopus-tornado drumming are all there, but we tested ourselves with bolder approaches to the song arrangements, dynamic rise, and fall, color, and mood. And we did very well. We hope those listening will think so too.
Where do you tend to pull inspiration from when writing?
It comes from all directions. Prog is anything you want it to be, just as metal is, and any incoming sounds or styles that catch our ears will be tested out in the laboratory – which is Kevin’s well-equipped home studio! Musically, Kevin is inspired by artists like Rush and Dream Theatre and Symphony X. Daniel is more into folks like Guthrie Govan and Mastodon and Between the Buried and Me. Colin’s into tech death and other eclectic stuff. And I’m a big fan of 1970s prog and 1980s thrash. It all melds together and finds its spaces and corners, and then whaddaya know? Hilarity ensues, and instrumental prog-metal erupts! We’ve come to know there is a certain recognizable Phaeton sound, but we try our best not to be repetitive and predictable. Repetition and predictability are anathema to any serious prog musician worth their headless multiscale 8-string.
Do you have any upcoming shows you’d like to tell us about?
We are currently sharpening up our live set and will indeed be striking out sooner than later to hit the immediate metal centers that surround us – Vancouver, Calgary, and Edmonton. We want to pull off as many of the songs on both albums so we can really make people’s eyes cross in bewilderment when we hit the stage. Dickens Pub in Calgary is a target destination, as is the Rickshaw Theatre in Vancouver. After chewing our inner psyches apart over a long, long pandemic, we’re not wanting to take anything for granted anymore, and we want to punch ourselves out there as hard and as fast and as often as we can.
What’s your goal for 2023?
We’re finishing off the recording of our third album, Neurogenesis, which is what kept us busy as the pandemic dragged on and on. If we can complete the mixing and mastering soon enough, we might be able to release it before the end of the year! And there are other new songs we’ve got on the sketchpad for a fourth album, too. Our goal for 2023 – and beyond – is to not rest on our creative and collective laurels and nail our names into the iron pages of Canadian prog-metal! The book might be only twenty pages long, but we’ll be there!