2049 - Old Phyrexia

A while ago I received an e-mail from 2049 member Daniel Balderas, asking me to check out the two songs that the band had recorded, initially as a digital only release. 2049 as a band are not currently active, but with an already to their name called Torches, that has gained them some pretty good recognition, there may be more to come out of the band in the future.

So to the songs then. The release is made up of two tracks, the title track Old Phyrexia and Yawgmoth's Will. Old Phyrexia is just over 7 minutes long and starts with a building intro, which is pretty tuneful and introspective, and sits neatly underneath the screaming as the song progresses.. The song incorporates spoken word as well and the musicianship certainly isn't what you'd expect from a band that describe themselves as screamo. It's nice and slow towards the middle of the track before the screaming lurches back to the fore. 2049 certainly like to be more experimental and progressive with their music, which is good as there's a lot of bands already following the same tried and tested template. The fact that this can be called an actual song is testament to the skill of the band and their ability to weave melody into their music.


Yawgmoth's Will is is half the length of Old Phyrexia, but follows the same path. The clean guitar almost has a country feel to it at the start and music is more off-kilter this time. The screaming is still fairly fierce, but not in an angry/brutal way but in an emotional/cathartic way. I'm trying to think of a band to compare them to for a benchmark, but can't really categorise them, which is probably a good thing. The screaming becomes more feral towards the end of the track, but the underpinning melody still remains intact.

2049 obviously have a lot of different influences and don't just go for the jugular. They prove that putting more thought into your music can help to make you stand out and by not being cliched in their approach, they prove their talent. Hopefully, we'll see more from these guys sometime in the future.

In the meantime though, you can check their EP Torches on their Bandcamp page. I've posted the link to the Bandcamp page below for you, so you can have a listen to it.



Also, Daniel Balderas also has a solo project called ForHesTheHarbingerOfDeath and he's got a Soundcloud page that you can check out with his work on it. Just go to http://soundcloud.com/search?q%5Bfulltext%5D=ForHesTheHarbingerOf+Death