Chilean Overlord

Given that this is my personal blog, I'm entitled to post whatever the fuck I want to and blow my own horn for a while -PAUSE-.

I want to talk about OVERLORD. Overlord is (was?) a Thrash/Death Metal band that I started in 2010 here in Santiago de Chile. I began with writing some songs which ended up in a EP which was released later that year.

Overlord  - 2010

After that I decided to continue the punishment and through 2011 I worked in "Tiempos Antares" and well, I released it totally gratis as with all my albums. That year I began my degree as English Teacher so I divided my time between the Univ and Overlord so given that I was a freshman, the pressure wasn't too hard. At one point I felt I was totally born to do "Tiempos Antares", it was my destiny to put this shit out there.

Tiempos Antares - 2011

In early 2012 I started a new band with some friends from the Faculty called Frog Skeleton Impalement (FSI). It was a Death Metal band and it was my attempt to make "fun/joke" metal, you know, basic riffs and patterns, joke lyrics... a sort of Municipal Waste "DeathMetallized". That was an awesome chapter of my life with good friends and good music. Unfortunately things didn't work out even though we had some rehearsals and me with another friend wrote some good songs (which later took part in another Overlord album).

In September 2012 I had a very deep conversation with a long time friend in which he expressed his feelings about "Tiempos Antares" making a series of respectful, admirable comments.
Those comments made a deep impact and even though we were, let's say, drunk, I saw honesty and respect. That motivated me to start working on a new record.
The new album was supposed to be called "Antiprophecies" and it was finished on December the same year. Almost half of the album was never included on the final mastering. Finally I decided to call it "Blackout" according with the lyrical approach of the album which I felt it represented more the title.

Blackout - 2013

I had understood that one of my best friends who was at the army at the time was going to be "released" that same month so I wanted to release "Blackout" when he came to Santiago because he was near Punta Arenas (more than 2000 km. of distance). But sometimes odds are just bitches. He called me to tell me that he was going to be in Santiago in March/April of 2013. Fuck.
So I postponed the release date.

But what happened in the meantime? Well, in January 2013 I had a sort of romantic deception and what better way to put the fucking shit away that making an album. It started as an experiment: I wanted to create an EP in less than a month, filling it with "standard" riffs, frantic rhythms, a hideous voice and strange lyrics. What was my goal? Create a some sort of album which were basic Thrash Metal/Death Metal with not much effort from my part and still see if that had success, I mean obviously not commercial but in terms of impact. And according to the comments I received, the goal was achieved.

Conclusion: You don't need to break your head writing complex, technical, thought-provoking material; you just need a couple of riffs, a very raw distortion, very fast tempo and unintelligible screams to be successful in today's metal panorama.
This obviously is sarcasm. But with a pinch of genuine hope losing. Seriously.

The Undead Cantata - 2013

The next day (seriously) after I released "The Undead Cantata" I began working on the next Overlord dose and the project code name was "The Rise and Fall of Stephanie Z" and it was supposed to be a concept album divided in 2 discs (yeah, that's crazy). Don't even ask me about the story behind that pretentious title. All I can remember is that it went about some woman from outer space who saved the Earth from extinction.
Now I can realize why it didn't work out.

Anyway, I wrote about 6 songs before entering class in March. After I realized that "Stephanie" wouldn't do the trick, the phrase "Tolerance Collapse" attacked me. For weeks. I tried to rationalize and apply it to any aspect of my life and then suddenly I yelled "THE FUCKING FINAL OVERLORD ALBUM!" (Well, I didn't ACTUALLY said that. I said something like: "Conchetumare ahí 'ta el nombre pa' la weá de Overlord!").

It should be pointed out that I was sort of fed up with the whole Overlord thing at that point. But anyway, I decided to make the effort of my life, despite the results from "The Undead Cantata" experiment. I tried really hard to do my best, working really hard the whole motherfucking year.

I began the sessions in late March/early April of 2013 and the instruments were finished in November of the same year. My goal was to finish the album before 2013 finished, but sadly, my "microphone provider" (a cool guy who was supposed to lend me a super cool studio microphone) had some problems and December 31th came and I was like "Fuck it, DIY all the time bitch!" so I purchased a shitty Corean microphone and I began recording the vocals.

I spent January 2014 post producing the whole shit and at that point I was more than exhausted from the fucking University and the interminably long "Tolerance Collapse" sessions. So probably the final mixing was not so good.

Tolerance Collapse - 2014

And that's it up to this date. Overlord was a very important part of my life, I made a lot of mistakes but I also learnt a lot.
I will continue talking about Overlord in this blog, probably sharing the albums, some stories and everything related to it. This was just a brief history of what happened.

But it's time to move on.

Let's explore new grounds!

That's it. Flatuleitor out.