Ephemeral Sun

Ephemeral Sun is an exercise in contrasts, creating a music that balances elements both cerebral and visceral in nature.
Following almost five years of work, the band has recently released their sophomore album, "Harvest Aorta." The album finds the band moving into still more ambitious musical territory, thus continuing to make manifest their unspoken mission statement to forge a unique sonic path. In the place of vocal-oriented song arrangements are dark, complex instrumental passages and extended adventures in theme and variation.
The band also took a different approach when recording this material. Rather than working with click tracks and scratches, the majority of tracking was done live in the studio with the hope of capturing some of the energy and intensity of a live performance while preserving the relative sonic clarity of a studio recording. The desired result was achieved.
"Springsong" opens the album and serves notice of the new direction Ephemeral Sun has taken. Intended as an informal sequel to "Winter Has No Mercy" from Broken Door, it embraces the same aggressive approach but achieves higher peaks and greater contrasts. "Prism", originally a vocal piece, was deconstructed and rebuilt into an instrumentally powerful symphonic work that may be one of the band's most affecting moments. Closing out the first half of the album is "Memoirs," a quiet slice of restrained melancholy. Even in minimalist form, the band retains the ability to convey a cinematic landscape.
The second half of the album is the epic "Harvest Aorta," the band's most definitive moment to date and nothing short of a tour de force. An experiment in theme/variation rather than a conventional verse/chorus composition, the piece took on a life of its own ultimately clocking in at over 40 minutes. The song’s expansive framework consolidates and showcases the band’s many strengths. These include stark contrasts between dark and light, lush atmospheres and blistering solos, and ambient interludes and soaring melodies.
"Harvest Aorta" is four songs, four musicians, and over an hour of powerful, heavy instrumental symphonic rock.
Beyond the studio release, Ephemeral Sun remains committed to live performance. Their blurring of genre lines means less frequent shows, so when the band plays, they hit the stage hard, fast, and ready to present their work in the best manner possible. Even within the huge, dense atmosphere the band creates, they manage to balance the same dynamic contrasts that are displayed on their studio work. A word like "dangerous" would not be inappropriate when describing Ephemeral Sun live.
Ephemeral Sun formed in 2002 from the remnants of a popular regional doom metal outfit. With the release of their debut "Broken Door" (2004), they took that metal formula and mangled it to bits, incorporating ideas and motifs ranging from jazz to prog rock to avant garde experimentation. Dark, winding arrangements, confident musicianship and soaring female vocals all became cornerstones for a sound that echoed within the metal genre while existing entirely outside of it. This phase of the band would culminate in a standout performance at ROSFest in 2006.