2011: Like a Robot Walking into the Sunset...

2011 is coming to a close, and as is the tradition during this time of year, we stop to look back on our achievements from the previous year before diving headlong into the next! 2011 was arguably the biggest year of URIZEN thus far, and 2012 is going to have to put on its big boy pants to top it.

Though there was no official new release from us this year, I like to think of this as the Year of Universe:Red. Officially releasing in December of 2010, Universe:Red was our vessel for adventure this year, and what a vessel in which to ride! Perhaps most monumental (for me anyway) about the release of Universe:Red was that it gave way to the Expanding Universe tour; the first proper US tour in UriHistory!

 

 Touring has been a dream of mine for as long as I can remember, and despite the massive amount of work, money, frustration, and auto repair that went into it, I can very honestly and legitimately say that it met and exceeded every one of my expectations. Most people would look at our very modest tour and not see what the big deal was, but for us, it was a personal triumph and the fulfillment of a lifelong goal. For those of you who attended, helped us book and promote shows, shared the stage with us, or donned jumpsuits and monster costumes to help us bring our show to life, you may never know how much we appreciate you. It would have been entirely impossible without everyone's help, and we are indebted to you all!

Aside from our main tour, we had so many great opportunities to hit the road and perform with awesome people for even awesom-er fans. We continued our beloved tradition of con performances at All-Con in Dallas and Omnicon in McAllen, and had the time of our lives doing a mini-tour of Texas with our good friends and greatest source of career-based inspiration, The Protomen. On top of all of this, we also manged to squeeze in some local shows along the way, and even resurrected the aborted souls of NEZIRU on Halloween.

2011 also saw the departure of two UriMen from the group, but in their absence we had the opportunity to share the stage with a couple of very cool and talented dudes: Dan Sandberg and Cesar Gonzalez. Thank you both for donating your time and talents to us, this won't be the last time you'll be seen on a URIZEN stage, I guarantee it!

Thanks are also in order for the bands that helped us during the Expanding Universe tour: The Protomen, Bat Castle, D&D Sluggers, Children of the Reptile, Earths Collide, Brazen Angel, Prime Mover, Centura, Come See My Dead Person, Broken End Stereo, and every other band that we shared the stage with along the way. Independent music cannot exist without a strong community of musicians, and every one of the people in these bands did us favors that we will happily return anytime they need it!

Thanks also to the people that made our lives a whole lot easier during 2011: Joshua and Loyal Family in St. Louis for your generosity and hospitality; Hoyt Parris and Pathfinder Promotions in Atlanta for your tireless dedication to metal music; Todd at All-Con and Mark at Omnicon for putting a shitload of oft-thankless work into these conventions that we love to play and attend; Rustin and the staff at Tomcats West for giving us a homebase, a great sound system, and a pay scale that helps us keep gas in the Macho Van; and of course the Damask family, who provided us with a home and a family in North Carolina and asked for nothing in return.

Perhaps the biggest thanks of all goes to our friends and family who piled into our stinky (often AC-less) Macho Van to travel great lengths for no pay with nothing provided, all for the greater glory of bringing a robot, goo monster, Kuato, and more to life every single night at every show this year: Gabe Castañeda, Casey Drinnen, Gus Ruby, and David Cerezo, there would have been no URIZEN this year without your help!

 

So how will we top such a monumental year? Simple: More tours! More conventions! New stage show! New album! Maybe even a stop at a little music fest in Austin called... umm... Something By Somethingwest? 2012 will be bigger and URIZEN-ier, so don't take your eyes off of us for a minute. 

Thanks again for making 2011 a year that will live on in our memories forever!

Daniel // URIZEN

P.S. We played with Green Jelly this year. Green. Jelly. Seriously, what an amazingly cool fucking year this was!

URIZEN to Perform 'autocratopolis' Album from Start to Finish

2011 is coming to an end, and with 2012 fast approaching, we here at URIZEN are bracing for in influx of newness: new album; new stage show; and lots of new shows in new places with new fans.

But before we step forth into the future, it feels fitting to look back at what brought us to where we are today, and it all started with Thomas, Julio, and myself growing together as musicians as we created autocratopolis, our first full-length release.

To honor the past before welcoming the future, we have decided to play autocratopolis live, from start to finish, at Tomcats West in Fort Worth, TX on Saturday, December 10th.

This is the first (and likely only) time we will ever perform the album in its entirety, so this is definitely a special show for us. This show will mark the first time we have ever performed the songs “a shift in the weather” and “or 3 steps” (aka “Neon pt.2”) in a live setting, and will be a chance for you to hear rarely played songs like “streetlight” and “oh, the humanity!” along with crowd favorites such as “never felt so dreadful” and “barren winds.”

Because we are still hard at work on our new stage experience, this show will also be rare in that it will feature URIZEN in an “au natural” setting. No jumpsuits, no armor, no monsters. Just three musicians sharing their work with people who appreciate it for what it is.

Joining us for this experience will be our very good friends in Lizard Professor, and our fellow Do For It Records pals The Spectacle, along with more bands to be announced. This will be a nightlong celebration of hardworking DFW musicians and uniquely crafted music, and we’re excited to be a part of it.

So join us on Saturday, December 10th at Tomcats West at 3137 Alta Mere in Fort Worth. Ages 17 and up are welcome; $10 over 21, $15 for under. This will be the last time you see URIZEN onstage in 2011, and it may be the last time you ever hear some of these songs from autocratopolis performed live, so mark your calendars now!

Expanding Universe Video Journal: Part Two Ready and Willing

The video journals keep a-chuggin' along with Part Two: Gateway to the East. And remember, each video diary more-or-less corresponds with one of the original blog entries we posted from the road, so if you want a little more context, or a little more info about what happened on the tour during those particular scenes, don't forget to check 'em out. The St. Louis-related blog is right here: http://urizenonline.blogspot.com/2011/06/expanding-universe-onward-to-st-louis.html and you should be able to find the rest easily enough by using the "Expanding Universe tour" tag.

I will say that editing this video was tough, because there was a lot going on in that hotel room that I personally found to be quite hilarious. The challenge in assembling these videos, however, is realizing that not everyone finds you as hilarious and interesting as you find yourself, so sometimes you've gotta pull back a little bit. But who knows, if there's enough interest, maybe we'll revisit these videos in some sort of "director's cut" version, eh?

No?

Awww... c'mon!

Expanding Universe Video Journal: Part One Now Posted!

Hey, remember that thing we did this summer? You know... that thing where you drive around and play music and do fun stuff while losing lots of money? Oh yeah... touring! That's the rub!

 

Well, while we were touring, the camera was rolling... a lot. We ended up with hours and hours of footage (thank you, digital camera with built-in hard drive!), and now we're trickling the juicy bits down to you a little at a time, starting with the video above!

 

In the video above, you'll see what happened during our first night of the tour in our hometown of Fort Worth. If you kept up with the original tour blogs, you already know that our mode of transport, the Macho Van, was in desperate need of a radiator transplant, lest our entire tour be effed in its stupid A. Now you can live the experience as if you were standing around with us, watching awesome dudes save our tour and our asses! (For the full experience, watch the video while sniffing a nice stinky bottle of coolant.)

 

Part Two is in the can, and Part Three is already underway, but frankly, the only way I'm going to know if you guys are actually enjoying these videos is if you tell me so! So if you're enjoying what you're seeing so far (and I hope you do), and you want to see more, just let us know by commenting on the YouTube page, or on Facebook, or even here on the blog.

Stay tuned for more, and if you haven't already, make sure to head to our YouTube Channel and click that big, tasty "Subscribe" button so you don't miss out on any shenanigans! SHENANIGANS!!!

Download the Entire URIZEN Catalogue Now... and Name Your Own Price!

Hello friends!

As we here at URIZEN HQ crawl into our dank cave to begin earnest work on new music and a revamped stage show, we felt it would be nice for all of you out there to have plenty of UriGoodness to fill your heads with in the meantime. And to that end, we have offered up our entire musical career on Bandcamp.com... for FREE!*

I need no further details! Let me at that bounty!

The more observant among you will notice the asterisk after "FREE!" and assume that we don't actually mean "free" (which is, admittedly, a valid concern). The good news is that, yes, we do actually mean FREE! (freefreefreefreefreefreefree), but what that little butthole-lookin' punctuation mark is trying to tell you is that it doesn't necessarily have to be free. "Free" in this scenario actually means:

*name your own price

So yeah, if you want it all for free, do it to it, boss! If you want to give us a few bucks for our trouble, even better! You decide if and how you want to support this project, because hey, we're doin' it for you, chums! But, as a gesture of good will, there are two things I would like to ask of each of you:

1. Join the Mailing List: When you download any of our stuff from Bandcamp, you'll have to put in an email address. We'll then take those email addresses and add them to our mailing list, so we hope you don't mind. We promise not to spam you too much, but sometimes you come across a deal on generic Viagra that you just gotta share with the world.

(And hey, if you want to just join the mailing list anyway, more power to ya! Just click here: http://eepurl.com/fwjtY and let the magic of the internet do the rest!)

2. Share with your Friends: The goal of this whole thing is to share our music with the world. That's what we want! But we're only three guys, and we only know so many people, so that's why we're asking you to spread the http://urizen.bandcamp.com/ link to your friends and family and anyone who might enjoy what they hear. That way we can all rock out in unison next time we see you on the road!

Again, our goal as a group of musicians is to have our music heard by as many people as possible, and we really feel that this is a fair way to do that while still benefiting both parties. And keep in mind, all songs are streaming in full at the Bandcamp site, so you don't even have to download anything if you don't want to! With your help, we'll raise URIZEN Awareness by 48000% (estimated) by the time the new album and tour are ready to launch, and then, my friends, it will truly be a party!

Oh, one more thing... "free" (as in "no money exchanged") downloads are limited to 200 per month, so act now if you want to get in on some of that sweeeet non-monetary goodness.

And don't forget, for you old-schoolers out there, we still have plenty of flesh-and-blood physical albums for sale at the URIZEN Online Superstore!

Now go! Listen! Enjoy!

Expanding Universe: Gooblins, Blizzies, and the Father of Death

Prologue
As you probably read in the last blog entry, we were supposed to spend this week traveling to and from WorldCon in Reno, but had to pull out for horrible, stupid reasons (namely money). In an act of desperation last Saturday (mere days from the time we were supposed to leave for Reno), I contacted mankind's (and my) last hope, The Protomen, to see if we could join them on their latest run through the non-DFW portions of the state of Texas. To my great delight and surprise, I was contacted that night by Murphy Weller himself, and the wheels were set in motion. Before I knew it, it was Tuesday morning, and we were loading up the trailer and hitching it to the Macho Van to meet our friends The Protomen in Houston.

URIZEN Summer Update: The Final Frontier

Okay, there’s a lot to say in this update, but first things first: I am sad to announce that we must regrettably and heartbreakingly cancel our upcoming appearance at Renovation, the 69th annual WorldCon in Reno, NV. I could go on and on about the millions of things that went wrong in our camp that led to this cancellation, but the short and skinny of it is that we ran out of funds, and the 3,000+ mile round-trip drive to and from Reno was just too much gas money for our poor little hearts to conjure. I can’t even begin to describe how bad we feel for having to cancel so close to the event, and we can’t apologize enough for the fans we may have let down, or for the event organizers who will have to clean up our mess. I pride myself on almost NEVER cancelling shows, but it was very literally not possible for us to make this trip, and it kills me to admit that. In our absence, however, the convention will continue to go on, and it will be an amazing adventure, which we encourage everyone to attend!

So that's the bad news. Dealing with the reality of that situation has been very difficult for me. And the only thing keeping me from strangling myself with a1/4" cable right now is the divine intervention of a little band from Nashville, TN that some of you may have heard of... a group of auditory warriors known as The Protomen. Seeing that our now-canceled Reno trip coincided with The Protomen’s tour leg through Texas, I wiped away my shameful tears and contacted mankind’s last hope via email. Before I knew it, they had arranged for us to join them on two of their three Texas show dates, and our lives got a lot less bleak and starting approaching the realm of pure awesome once again! And so we shall fight alongside these Protomen on August 16th in Houston and on August 18th in San Antonio, and those who bear witness shall pass on stories of those nights to their children, and that oral history shall continue infinitely through the annals of time, until the sun consumes our Earth in an explosion of firey devastation. Or at the very least, everyone will have a really fun and fantastic experience, so ultimately it’s a win-win situation!

So Texas friends, come see us one last time before we retreat into URIZEN HQ for the winter, where we will prepare for you delicious musical and visual treats for the future. Send us into our self-imposed artistic seclusion with happy memories of chanting crowds and joyful smiles! We shall come creeping out again soon, stronger than ever and ready to be merry with you all once more!

-Daniel // URIZEN

Expanding Universe: A Risque Cafe and the Atlantian Re-exploration

Sunday, July 3 2011
I left the following bit of information out of the last blog because I didn't want to cheapen the sincerity of my words expressing thanks to people like Ed at Backstage and the fans who make us feel loved and needed. But this story needs to be told, because after our show in Gainesville, Matt, Gabe and I paid a visit to the most magical place on Earth (well, the southeastern US anyway): Cafe Risque.

You can probably see where this is going...

Expanding Universe: Redemption in Gainesvile

Saturday, July 2 2011
At the end of the last semi-angry, semi-bitter (well, mostly bitter) blog entry, I begged for Gainesville to redeem Florida in our eyes. The first thing that happened when we piled out of our van? We noticed this:

...the fuck?

Expanding Universe: A Tale of Tampa

Friday, July 1 2011
Now look... I'm not usually one to judge something based entirely on one experience, but with that said, I'm pretty sure Tampa is a shithole. Now if you're from Tampa or you like Tampa or you have family from Tampa, please don't be offended. I'm sure there are good people and good places in Tampa, just like with any place in the world. But the Tampa we saw yesterday was just a rundown desperate shithole with shitty people and shitty places. But maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start from the beginning.

Expanding Universe: URIZEN vs. Old Man Ocean

Thursday, June 30 2011
The "next day" of the tour began right after the Charleston show, as we had no hotel for the night, but also because we were eager to get to Jacksonville to hit the beach for our day off. Since the drive between Charleston and Jacksonville was relatively short, we dragged our feet by hanging out at Walmart for a while, gathering $1 kites with which to build our epic, patented 6-tier kite monstrosity. 

After Walmart, we hit the road. We all wanted to experience a proper east coast sunrise at the beach, so Thomas planned to pull over to an oceanside stop around 6am for us to have a look. Unfortunately, we ended up outside of Savannah, GA just before sunrise, and we learned a harsh lesson about Georgia beaches: 

Expanding Universe: Like Regular Carolina, but Further... South

Wednesday, June 29 2011
From the moment I booked the South Carolina stop of this tour, I had a weird, bad feeling about it. I couldn't place what it was exactly, just this feeling that something was going to go wrong. But waking up this morning proved to be not only uneventful, but very pleasant! In a final act of hospitality, the Damasks provided us with an enormous bag of delicious bagels, and packed the numerous leftovers for the road, along with some bananas, a bunch of cookies, and various other goodies. 

Thomas and Julio were ecstatic.

But gut feelings usually happen for a reason, and at around 3pm on the drive down to Charleston, I finally found out what was going to go wrong. To make a very long story short, the club we were supposed to play at decided to bump the show in favor of... 

Expanding Universe: Son of North Carolina

Tuesday, June 28 2011
The hospitality from the Damasks continued today in the form of free pizza and a TV, on which we watched a documentary about rumspringa, followed by more sleeping on the floor.

He might just be planking.

Eventually we were forced to leave the comfort of this temporary home in favor of a show at Night Light in Chapel Hill, so into the van we piled, and on the road we went. The road from Raleigh to Chapel Hill was, of course, accompanied by a torrential downpour, as has been the tradition during this tour, and it pretty much always lets up right before we arrive at the club, so I guess we should be happy about that.

Expanding Universe: From Beautiful Green Mountains to Horrible Red Stoplights

Monday, June 27 2011 
The goal for today was to complete the unforgivingly long journey from St. Louis to Wilmington, and we still had a good 8 hours, a punctured trailer tire, and some Appalachian mountains to deal with. With the tire quickly patched and switched out, it was time to put the Macho Van's little V6 heart to the test and see how it dealt with mountain ranges. 

...Prepare for Van Death

The result? 

Expanding Universe: Superman and Friends

Sunday, June 26 2011
Woke up this morning and waded across the hotel room to take a shower. Decided to wake everyone else up with Erasure's "A Little Respect" and was treated with a 98% nude dance from the banana-hammocked Gabe.

Not pictured: Gabe

 No show today so we took our sweet time traveling between St. Louis and Knoxville on the way to Wilmington for a show on Monday night. That meant some casual dining at Taco Bell, some upscale shopping at Wal-Mart, and of course, a stop at one of America's most revered landmarks. Yeah, you know what I'm talkin' about...

Expanding Universe: Onward to St. Louis

Saturday, June 25 2011
We departed from Fort Worth at about 3am and began a long sleepy journey through Oklahoma and Missouri. The trip was largely free of difficulties, as the formerly overheating Macho Van was now ice cold and problem-free.

The fuel gauge, however, is still quite broken.

 There were only two problems to speak of. The first is that we somehow acquired a metal shard of some sort that is slowly draining one of our trailer tires of precious life. The other problem was the return of...

Expanding Universe: The Journey Begins

Friday, June 24 2011
If there is one phrase that best describes the condition of our trusty (/not trusty) van, The Macho Van, that phrase would be: riddled with problems. Since we returned from our mini-Texas tour, Macho has been in and out of various shops to fix various problems for various costs. The one constant, however, was that the Macho Van was overheating, and no amount of work ever seemed to fix that.

Pictured: Every tour by every band ever.

On Friday afternoon, I picked up the van for the last time before hitting the road for the eastern leg of the Expanding Universe tour. But before we could even strap on the trailer, that bitch was overheating once again. With no time left, we geared up and prepared to hobble across the US in an overheating van with the heat a-blastin' all the way across America. We had no choice; this tour was happening one way or the other.

Tour-pollo 13: "San Antonio, We Have a Problem"

So today marked the beginning of the URIZEN Texas Mini-Tour, and the official start of our summer of touring... and I don't think it's possible that any more shit could have gone wrong! Truly it was the Apollo 13 of tour kickoffs.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? The fun began with us making about a thousand new friends that all looked a lot like this:

Hello there.

In the time since our last excursion, the UriTrailer became less a transport unit for musical equipment and more an apartment complex for legions of wasps. They were none too happy about us trying to reclaim our property, and an epic battle ensued. Many wasps were killed, much time was wasted, and much sunburn was acquired.

But soon, the trailer was loaded and were on our way. Smooth sailing from here, right? Man... did you even read the title of this blog entry?

Once we got to Dallas, we noticed a little problem: the van was very much overheating. So we checked the coolant, and hey, it was bone dry! Throw some coolant in there and problem solved... right? *sigh* No... not right.

So after some fresh coolant, some stop leak, and a new radiator cap, we were still blazing hot, so we had to kiss our ice cold, wonderfully breezy A/C goodbye and crank up the heat to keep the engine from es'ploding.

Back on the road, heat blazin', windows wide open and loud as shit, but at least we're on our way to San Antonio at last.

Well... almost.

Oh I'm sorry, did you guys want to drive on me?

The left tire on our trailer just fuckin'... disintegrated. So we pull over, jack it up, take off the pile of scraps that was once a tire, and throw on the spare. But wait! The spare is totally flat! Hooray! So... trailer is jacked up again, wheel is removed, and half of the party is left behind to defend the crippled trailer. The rest of us take the van in search of air, but everything along the interstate is conveniently out of order. We finally find air in fuggin' Abbott, TX (birthplace of Willie Nelson!) and head back to our near-dead roadside associates.

Alright, alright... we change the tire, we hit the road, we finally put some miles behind us, and all is well. I mean, except for the fact that we're four hours outside of San Antonio, and we're set to hit the stage in four hours. Aye aye aye!

Don't be sad, Matt, we'll get there someday.

The rest of the trip actually went off without any problems, and we arrived at Clicks with about an hour to spare. Despite taking 10 full hours to complete what should have been a 4 or 5 hour trip, the day of bullshit was totally worth it! The club itself was awesome, the staff was friendly and generous, and the crowd was excited and rockin' out despite it being after midnight. We met some awesome new friends, hung out with a few old ones (Rik Buddha in da house!), and spread a great deal of CDs and shirts across the land of San Antonio.

But the best part of the entire trip so far...?

Burrotote HUGE! God I love you, El Taco Tote...

Headhunters in Austin tomorrow, let's see if we can make the trip without incident!

The "URIZEN Across the Planet" Initiative

We here at URIZEN HQ can certainly be said to possess two dominant qualities: a strong desire to share our music with the world; and an insane lack of financial smarts and business sense. When those two characteristics collide, you get things like this... the "URIZEN Across the Planet" initiative!

The goal of URIZEN Across the Planet is to get a copy of our latest musical lovechild Universe:Red into as many countries as possible. To that end, we will send you a FREE  copy of Universe:Red if you are the first person in your country to email us and ask for it! Holy shite!

8-Bit Universe: Coming to All-Con!

As some of you may remember, we released a con-exclusive CD when we journeyed to Dragon*Con in Atlanta last year.

Yeah, you know, this guy.

Well, we didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression and make it seem like we care less about our beloved All-Con, so at this year's con, we'll be releasing a new CD called 8-Bit Universe. "What's all this, then?" you're probably asking yourself (especially if you're a bobby...). Well, 8-Bit Universe is a complete chiptune remix of the entire Universe:Red album! That means that you'll be able to hear all seven of your favorite Universe:Red tracks in full-on, 8-bit, Nintendo-y glory! Holy explosive nerdgasm!

Have a sneak peak at the 8-Bit Universe label, won't you?

Click to embiggen, my child.

So if you're going to be at All-Con this weekend, swing by our table and pick up one of these limited edition badboys! And for those of you who can't make it, be on the lookout for 8-Bit Universe to make it your way soon!

See you at All-Con!

Tales from a Red Universe | Part Four of Four: Cardboard Residence

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

(Haven't read Part Three yet? No problemo, look here!)

Boxmen

From my box I can see everything. Life and all the joy that it can bring. No I don't want to live beyond my frame. 'Cause in here the weather's always better, and life's a winning game! I find the scum outside to be a source of loneliness, but in my fear fortress the box has sown my redemption. Outside it's wet and cold... a violent sight I shan't perceive but through my filters and protection. I am a box man! What? I've never heard such ridiculous buffoonary! Why would I want to join you out there? Just look at my life compared to yours. I've got all the things a boy could ever want. Friends by the thousands, the very world at my fingertips! I'll never join you! Never! That's ludicrous... absurd! Outside again... could I resume that life? To know... I'd finally found a way I can feel safe outside....to know... to know! I'm fine to dull sensations of pain and agony, but to hide from danger I have hidden everything. An even keel... my life is plain and dull, but at last I have realized. Into the world I go! (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

This song was inspired by the internet and the burgeoning internet culture that frustrates me daily, despite a clear inability on my part to simply "avoid" it. I still can't seem to escape its grasp. I would have to say that this song is a criticism of people who experience the world primarily through the filters of media, opting only for scant interaction with the "real world"... though, really, I am currently living the life of a Boxman myself... so... yeah... I should heed my own advice!

Tales from a Red Universe | Part Three of Four: Human Revelations

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

(Haven't read Part Two yet? C'mon man, view it here!)

A New Revelation

(staccato 8-bit notes represent the universe speaking to humanity by way of science and technology) Oh yes, of course. Please allow me to translate. He says: Of the universe, it should be noted that yours is but one of many. That due to things like uncertainty... and probability... the landscape of your future is truly a matter of limitless potential, and that's good. I failed to grasp emotion, or suffer with disease. "Cold" and "loneliness" astound me. I tried to find a better "self" to be. I had hoped that beyond the stars, I would find a way. I had dreamed that behind the mind, I would find the answers. I had hoped, that through it all, there'd be much more to see. I had hoped that I'd finally find a "me"! And to summarize, existence is constantly splitting and branching off into new and wondrous paths. And each new moment holds with it any number of an unfathomable amount of possibilities. So for those moments giving rise to pain, it is to be hoped that elsewhere, along a concurrent path, an inverse moment is giving rise... to joy! (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

"A New Revelation" marks the universe's (and the album's) transition of perspective from the totality of the vast without to the conscious within. During the song there are two sections where the synth line seems to be "speaking" to an unidentified human who is then translating the findings to the listener. This is meant as the universe revealing itself to humanity, thus creating this mutual duality where the universe and the human intellect are nearly one in the same, yet, nevertheless,  forever divided by their respective distinctions of perspective.... or are they?

Tales from a Red Universe | Part Two of Four: Universal Conscience

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

(Haven't read Part One yet? Foolish human, view it here!)

A Budding Consciousness

I will not tolerate this boundary, I find it troublesome indeed. I will not yield to limitation.. in fact I'll never yield again. I'll find a way to save my blissful state and backwards facing dream. The simple "I" that became, will not be made to live as "we". Ah, every moment it worsens... this, thickening awareness. Cluttering and corrupting my peace. Wretched questions with seemingly no end! I can see it in the distance... my doom! The cursed "why?!" I find this state of mine to be a harsh eventuality. And I shall not fear nor oppose. I'll find what it means to "know". I'll find the substance of my glee. I'll take it back to when "I" was the answer to most everything. I'll find the surface of my glee and suffer fate no more. I want to make this whole world go away. (Lyrics: Thomas Drinnen)

Here's where things start to go wrong for poor old Mr. (Or Ms... or Mrs... or Dr.) Universe. Having burst onto the scene with a great deal of pomp, we find the universe in an awkward and unforeseen predicament: it is growing a multiplicitous consciousness by way of universal laws, the developing order of the settling universe, and, of course, humanity's ever growing awareness of the universe from within (or, as Carl Sagan put it, humanity is: "a way for the universe to know itself").

Tales from a Red Universe | Part One of Four: The Big Bang

"Tales from a Red Universe" is a four-part exploration in which Thomas takes you behind the scenes of the lyrics and concepts of URIZEN's "Universe:Red." Slip on a spacesuit and join us for the ride, won't you?

In The Beginning
The tale of Universe:Red begins many moons ago... like, a whole lot of moons. It traces its origins back to 2007's Universe EP, and even contains a track (Nothing is Epic) that was recorded a few months before the completion of URIZEN's 2005 debut: autocratopolis!

The Universe EP was something of an embarrassment to me, I must admit. I marked it as my first big failure in the Uri-realm. Initially, It was a CD brimming with potential, but that potential was never fully realized in its first incarnation. Essentially, we had given ourselves a deadline as a band to have an album finished and, in an effort to solidify this deadline as absolute, we went ahead and booked a "CD Release" concert which would mark the day that we needed to have the CDs back from replication. Unfortunately, the results were... less than favorable.

At the time of Universe's birth as an embarrassingly underproduced CD, I was working full time during the week and, as a result, the final moments of Universe's completion came down to two very sleepless weekends in a row. During this time, we made sweeping last minute changes to the music, fought terribly with the vocal melodies in "A Budding Consciousness," and left ourselves without enough time to mix or master the album properly. Then, for some reason, we released it anyway. Oops! At some point, I do plan on going into much more detail about the creation of the original Universe; the turmoil I personally suffered at its disappointing hands, and the decision to re-record, re-mix and re-master it, but that's a story for another day. The subject of this blog will be the lyrics of Universe:Red and the overall concept that they attempt to convey.

MetalMania Videos: The Whole Package

In anticipation of our upcoming show at Tomcats West in Fort Worth on Saturday, January 22nd, us UriFolk took it upon ourselves to film some promo videos in the style of a certain 1980s-era sports entertanment entity, which now has something to do with saving pandas...

Whatcha Gonna Do, Brother?!?

Soon, the other bands on the bill were joining in on the fun, and a very entertaining series of videos resulted. In an effort to make things easier for you, the fans, we have decided to compile those videos here, chronologically, for your veiwing pleasure. Enjoy!