Here's a link to a post I wrote a couple days ago detailing the challenges and process of writing this album:

/@fungusmonk/it-took-four-years-but-i-finally-finished-my-first-full-album-cold-stars-summer-thunder

It took four years, but I was finally able to realize a vision I've had for so long! I finally finished my first full band album, all written, performed (except for my incredible drummer), recorded, and produced by on my own! 

Summer Thunder is a three piece instrumental music album unlike anything else. While initially taking influence from a few diverse bands such as Tera Melos, Animals as Leaders, and The Fall of Troy, the long period over which the album was written (2013-2017) would lead it to expand in influences to acts as wide ranging as Tigran Hamasyan, Krallice, Elder, Ni, Yowie, and Cult of Luna.

Each song on this album was approached from scratch, with form developed intuitively and composition being focused on juxtaposing and stringing together diverse, unique musical ideas. Everything from avant-prog, mathcore, post-metal, and jazz is represented stylistically, and they blend into something totally new, and hard for me to even describe. 

The vision for this music was the blending and contrasting of styles centered around intense, chaotic, and heavy playing, intended to engage the listener physically and mentally, and by product of the two, inspire an abstract, subjective emotional experience. In simpler terms, if you like heavy, eclectic, engaging music that takes you to unexpected places, I think you might really dig it.

I'm super proud of how it came out and I hope you enjoy it too. If you have any thoughts or like what you hear, let me know!

You can listen to Summer Thunder here:

https://coldstars.bandcamp.com