The blog has been moved to Strange Land - blog. This site will remain as an archive. Thanks!

Here's a cool review of the cd. Surprised and pleased he picked up on the Damn The Machine connection. That's a somewhat obscure band even in prog circles, but hugely influential on both Brad and Sean:

http://www.dprp.net/reviews/201474.php#strangeland-deltav

Once upon a long ago, Chris Poland left Megadeth and just about three years later, after solo album Return to Metalopolis, he caught the attention of the prog metal loving audiences around when he returned with Damn the Ma...

(Originally posted in Sean's music blog)

Free Music and I'm Just Trying To Stay Alive I've just released a new album of miscellaneous songs. The sort of tunes I wrote for films that don't exist, songs I thought would be good for video games. That sort of thing. I like the music and it's nice for it to see the light of day. I also wanted to collect some of these things so I could "clean out the attic", clear room in my brain for new music I'm working on. I have been working on a new acousti...

We are now taking pre-orders for the new album! Order from our bandcamp page, and the first 100 orders (physical or digital) will receive a free 11x17 poster! We anticipate digital release on April 5th and we expect to start shipping cds by April 15th. CD preorders will also receive a download copy as soon as it's available.https://strangeland.bandcamp.com/album/v

Download the song here: http://strangeland.bandcamp.com/track/flare

Brad wrote all the initial music for this one, so I'll let him discuss that. I'll just say that I loved the tune immediately when I heard it. I vaguely recall throwing out a challenge to write with quartal and quintal harmonies instead of the usual tertiary stuff. Brad stomped that challenge nicely. 


I wrote the first draft of the lyrics, which Brad also gracefully repaired so they flowed better. The lyrics were inspir...

*From Brad:* This one started with the bass line in the chorus. I wanted a big ol' ugly, dissonant progression that sounded all washy and huge. I fleshed out the guitar chords and the vocal melody shortly after that. I sat back, listened to what I had in Sibelius (music notation software for the uninitiated) and thought "wow, that sounds excruciatingly painful!" It was then, in the infancy of having just a chorus, that the title hit me. I quickly added a second and third vocal part to live up to...

First off, you can download Dr. Manhattan for free right here. Thanks to everybody who already has, we love hearing from you. Now, about the song...

Sean says:
Musically this song started way back in 2006. At the time I was looking to write more songs in one of my altered tunings. I was also very heavily influenced by Devin Townsend at the time, particularly his Ocean Machine and Accelerated Evolution albums. I want to create something like a flowing wall of sound that he's known for. I ...

Greetings Strangers, 
Brad and I decided we wanted to give away some cool stuff, so we put together this web scavenger hunt for you.


SOLID (listen/free download here) is Brad’s best attempt to chronicle the historic events of February 11-March 10, 2011, which he witnessed firsthand. Sure, we could tell you what happened from our perspective, but we’d rather get you, the listener involved. 
 
Below are the lyrics to SOLID with annotation markings. We want you to find the best...

Hey all, 
If you don't have our new track 'SOLID' yet, go get it now, for free. then come right back for a rundown of how this one came together. 


From Brad:
SOLID started as an idea Sean sketched out for guitar and bass, and survives entirely (with added parts) as the second half of the song. I instantly loved it, but it took me a while to wrap my head around all the flying melodies and meter changes (who thinks in 13/8 anyway?), but after a few restless nights of odd-meter nightmares, ...

"Under Watchful Eyes" started with a beat I had used for a tune my high school jazz band played. It was titled "Nemesis," a jazz waltz, which I had never played before. I was pretty proud of this beat, and had tried unsuccessfully to use it in one of the first Strange Land songs which thankfully never saw a studio recording. Yet I somehow always came back to that jazz waltz.

One day last spring, my practice brought me back to the beat. I walked over to my piano and started trying to plunk out wha...