(written by Islander)
The melodic death metal band Outlying hail from the old industrial city of Trois-Rivieres in the province of Quebec, Canada. The band was founded in 2007 by lead vocalist/guitarist (as well as producer and writer) Fred A. Dubeau, and now includes drummer Martin Reithler and bassist Charles Alex Bilodeau.
On November 21st Outlying will release their third album, and their first one since 2016’s Frameworks for Repression. The name of the album is Oblivisci, which means “to forget” in old Latin. They chose the name “to reflect the tendency to withdraw from reality and ‘forget’ society and the existence you live in, so to speak,” and thus the songs “express oppressive feelings of trauma, alienation, grief, loneliness….”
What we have for you today is the premiere of the album’s third single, “The Raven Is Gone“. Fred Dubeau introduces it with these words:
L-R: Charles Alexandre Bilodeau (Bass, Back Vocals), Fred A. Dubeau (Guitar, Vocals), Martin Reithler (Drums)
Photo by Sandy Champagne
“Sometimes, bands write songs just before recording an album, and sometimes there are song ideas that were there for years before actually writing and recording that said song. ‘The Raven Is Gone’ is about how you often go through similar issues every day… and can feel powerless about all the chaos it can create. The whole vibe is about being a metaphorical raven who escapes fire and blaze, and tries to find a safe place to hide somewhere. The music is written to be as powerful, epic, and catchy as possible.”
The artwork created for “The Raven Is Gone” matches up well for the music, because the song is molten hot but also shrouded in darkness. The vocals are themselves searing, expelling the words in fast-paced screams that are explosively savage. The drumming quickly kicks into a furious gallop, in tandem with turbocharged bass-lines. And the riffing boils, blazes, and blares, while simultaneously discharging an urgent, blood-rushing pulse.
The song also generates a rapidly writhing melody line that sounds frantically distraught, a hint of the darkness that still lies ahead, which manifests in further variations in the riffing, variations that create moods of frenzied desperation and, when the pacing slows and the music becomes more panoramic, a kind of haunting hopelessness.
Outlying also make room for big muscle-moving grooves, giving the song’s big throbbing pulse a couple of big showcases before using fleet-fingered tremolo’d fretwork, thunderous bass-lines, and spine-cracking beats to fuel the music as it surges and burns again — and once more flys high like the song’s protagonist, the escaping raven.
To boil things down, Outlying pull together ingredients of thrash, melodic death metal, and black metal to create music that’s blood-rushing and muscle-flexing, and the panoply of changing riffs is very damned infectious too.
ALBUM CREDITS:
All songs performed, written and produced by Fred A. Dubeau and Martin Reithler
Mixed and mastered by Fred A. Dubeau
Album Artwork by Fred A. Dubeau
Album recording lineup:
Fred A. Dubeau – Guitar, Bass, All Vocals
Martin Reithler – Drums
Guest musicians for the album:
Steph from “Exotoxic” – Auxiliary percussions
Marilyn from “Chained By Illness” – Female Vocals
Sim from “Lancaster” – Guest Guitar Solo
Hardcore Band “Northwalk” – Gang Vocals
Fred A. Dubeau also mixed and mastered the album and created the cover artwork, which he describes as “a post-apocalyptic version of our home city.”
The album is likely to appeal to fans of Dark Tranquillity, At The Gates, Testament, Evergrey, and Machine Head. For more info, check the locations linked below. Also below, we’ve included streams of the album’s first two singles, “Pitch Black Serum” and “November“.
https://outlying.bandcamp.com
https://open.spotify.com/artist/5q6oycizRFEpwSzpUBJ0Z8
http://www.outlying.ca/
http://www.facebook.com/outlyingband
http://www.instagram.com/outlyingband/