Band – Sentiment Dissolve

Album – The Orwellian Dream

Country of Origin – Canada

Genre – Technical/Progressive Death Metal

Release Date – May 24, 2024

Label – CDN Records

Author – Hayduke X

 

Review

 

Goddam this is good! A while back, I somehow connected with vocalist Nathan Ferreira on the old interwebs, specifically Facebook. At that point, I didn’t know what project or projects he was involved with, just that we had a bunch of mutual friends (including people I actually know and trust) and that he was a part of the southern Ontario music scene. As that’s the scene I originally spawned from (smiles in Chachi on Acid original fan-dom), we started chatting online a bit, about shows, the scene, etc. A few of months ago, Nathan was sharing teasers that an album was coming from his new project, Sentiment Dissolve. I like supporting Canadian bands (especially from my old stomping grounds) and I like supporting bands that ‘punch upward’ against oppression – read the lyrics and you’ll see – so it was a no-brainer to give Nathan a non-committal offer to potentially review the album. Maybe even an interview (see below). What I didn’t expect, especially given that the band is advertised as a tech death band (possibly my least favorite style. Lol), was for this to go so incredibly hard! 

 

Sentiment Dissolve hails from London, Ontario. Up front on vocals is Nathan Ferreira, who I also had the pleasure of interviewing recently (results below). His vocal style is a fast paced, rhythmic growling attack. There are some higher pitched growls too, but I’m not sure who is responsible for those. They make a nice counterpoint to Ferreira’s choppy attack. The waves of riffs are the responsibility of Nicholas Luck. He keeps things suitably brutal, while still displaying plenty of chops. Spinny obliterates on bass. Seriously, the bass work is so good on this album (matching the excellence of the rest), and it’s perfectly placed in the mix so that we hear every thunderclap. Last, but not least, Matthew Johnson wrecks on drums. Precision, power, variety, creativity. What more do you want?

 

“The Orwellian Dream” is a revelation. The five tracks come in at what feels like a perfect 29ish minutes. Some may call that an EP (maybe even the band. I don’t know). In other cases, I might too, but this is a full story, a complete package, an finished thought,…an album. This is without a doubt my favorite tech death release so far this year, possibly my favorite death metal album (though there’s more competition there), and high up in my overall rankings of 2024 albums. Do not sleep on this debut! This is masterful.

 

Interview

 

Hayduke X: Thanks for taking some time to answer some questions. Let me start by congratulating you on the upcoming release of “The Orwellian Dream.” It’s really hard to believe that this is your debut as a band. How are you feeling about the album?

 

Nathan Ferreira: Thank you! It’s been a mix of exciting and overwhelming. Exciting because for at least a couple years, as we’ve started playing shows to get our name out there a bit, people always ask us when we’ll have music available online on spotify/youtube/whatever – and we always have to give them the whole “just wait, big things coming” shpiel. So we’re all very excited to have this out there because we’ve known since we first formed this band that we were on to something really special. 

 

On the other hand, now that we have music out, the onus is now on us to promote the hell out of it and get as many people to listen to us as possible. we’re inevitably going to be held up against the tens of thousand of other awesome metal bands out there that are also vying for your time and attention. It’s a whole different ballpark building up your local fanbase versus the massive global scale of the internet. So that’s definitely been a little daunting, because in this day and age it’s hard to stand out. 

HX: It is definitely hard to stand out, and I want to come back to that in a bit, but let’s get through the basics first. Can you introduce yourself and your role(s) in the band, as well as the other band members and what they do?

 

NF: I’m Nathan, the vocalist and primary lyricist. I also handle most of our show booking, social media and digital PR (as you can see with this interview) 

 

Nicholas Luck is our guitarist and songwriter. 

 

Spinny is our bassist and resident soundguy in the band – he engineered and recorded most of our album and also programs our live setup (click tracks, samples etc) – all that back-end stuff that the rest of us know jack shit about. He also handles graphic design for us (show posters etc)

 

Matt Johnson is our drummer. All he does is drum (unlike the rest of us who wear multiple hats as you can see), but he’s really good at it and it’s near impossible to find drummers in Ontario, much less ones that can play tech death, so we try not to overburden him so he doesn’t get scared off. 

 

HX: How did this project first form? What’s the history of Sentiment Dissolve, if you will?

NF: Nic and I have been playing in bands together for over a decade now – Skyless Aeons was our first project together that we started when we were both 17/18 years old. I tend to follow him around like a lost puppy. 

 

Nic actually met Matt by random chance at Burger King. Matt was talking to the cashier about tech death or something like that, and Nic had his guitar on him at the time. Matt said he was in a tech death band and asked him to come out and jam as a result of that random interaction. 

 

That project never fully got off the ground, but that was our initial link to him. We reconnected with him some years later when he came out to a Skyless Aeons show. We always knew Matt has the chops and speed needed to keep up with the crazy shit Nic writes, so we started jamming. 

 

We knew about Spinny, as we had played shows together with his other band Kavara, and he was also the in-house sound guy for a now-closed venue here in London, so when we were looking for a bassist to fill out our lineup, he was our first choice – he plays a mean bass and has a lot of the intangibles we needed to get out of our “garage band” phase.

HX: Sounds like lots of great coincidences to get this project off the ground. How long have you been together as a band?

NF: We started jamming with the full lineup sometime in 2021 (once we were allowed to under COVID restrictions), and played our first live show in July 2022.

HX: Tell me about your writing process as a band.

NF: Nic is definitely the alpha and omega of it – he’ll come to practice with a riff or sequence of riffs, and then he and Matt will spend some time drilling it and figuring out what drum parts are best suited to it. Spinny and I stand on the sidelines and offer suggestions and ideas until the skeleton for a song is finished, after which we start working on our bass parts and vocal lines respectively. Usually I’ll mine out vocal patterns during the initial “skeleton formation” and then write words to fit the pattern after. 

 

I can’t play guitar for shit but I do muck around in guitar pro and I’ve written a couple of riffs and songs that Nic didn’t totally hate. Spinny’s got a couple isolated riffs that he’s gonna throw in as well. “The Orwellian Dream” was all Nic’s structures, but expect future material from us to be a more collaborative effort. Whether that will make us better or worse only time will tell I suppose.

HX: How about the lyrics? That’s you?

NF: Yep, those are me, with the exception of Totalitarian Doctrine. The music and lyrics for that one were almost entirely composed by Nic before Sentiment Dissolve was even an idea.

HX: Let’s talk about lyrical themes. Forced Birther seems to be about the horrors of men legislating control over women’s bodies and Omnipotent Panopticon is maybe about genocide. Am I on track with those two?

NF: Yep, you’re definitely on track with those there. I’ve always been a bit fascinated with how big and scary the world is. We’re born into these massive machinations and systems, hundreds of years in the making, and we have next to no control how these forces shape our lives and force us into certain ways of being. 

 

I believe that’s the main reason why we all do the heinous, devious and unsavoury shit that we as humans do. We’re forced to by the constraints and pressure of modern society. That’s why we make decisions about other people’s bodies, create surveillance states and try to govern the motion and action of people’s lives that we couldn’t possibly understand. The “theme” of “The Orwellian Dream,” if you can call it that, is going into more specifics of how the greater forces of society twist and constrict us. I don’t know if that makes sense, it sounded better in my head, but each of these songs explores those themes in a different way.

HX: I haven’t seen the lyrics for the other three. What do they touch on, in that regard?

NF: I’ll try and summarize each of the five tracks as best I can:

 

Forced Birther is, as you alluded to, about how the powers that be (mostly men) take control of women’s bodies and, as the title suggests, force us to be born in this obfuscatingly complex machine. The song is rebelling against that in typical gory death metal fashion. 

 

Transcending the Hierarchy of Knowledge is about how society uses our fear of death and the certain unknowns that define our existence to keep us in line, and makes some vague suggestions for what we can do to overcome that. 

 

Totalitarian Doctrine is essentially a massive fist to the face of religious dogmas.

 

Omnipotent Panopticon is about surveillance states and how government bodies eliminate rebellion, dissent, and as you said, perpetuate genocide in both overt and covert ways. 

 

The Orwellian Dream is basically a warning to what might happen if we leave AI to permeate our society unchecked to the point where our thought processes, emotions and decision making capacities are all externally regulated by an algorithmic hivemind.

There’s a lot of metaphor used, both in order to fit the restrictions of song lyrics and because I like to  leave things open to interpretation – I’m a firm believer that everyone should get something different out of lyrics and poetry, because we’re all different people with different experiences. No two people are going to get the same thing out of the same text.

HX: That’s a great way to look at it. Even so, I think that the album comes off as more overtly political than most current death metal (though that has always existed in death metal). Why did you guys make this choice, versus just writing about gore or horror movies, for example?

 

NF: I never thought of us as a super political band if I’m being totally honest. We certainly try not to be too preachy in that regard. Our live shows are just about getting stupid and having fun. I guess I’m just a person with a lot of conviction behind my ideas and a lot of big picture thoughts about stuff, and lyrics are one of the only ways I get to express that. I figure most people don’t really read or follow the lyrics for the death metal they listen to anyways, nor can they understand them during a live show.  but if they do take the time to read and process that stuff, it’s nice to have something that makes you think.

 

I also just think it’s important to stand out and do things your own way wherever you can. I’m not a big horror movie guy,  there are tons of other bands who are going to be far better at exploring those topics. All I can do is go with what I know. I do think it’s important to pay tribute to the bands that influenced you and touch upon those topics in some ways, because nothing is born out of a vacuum – hence why Forced Birther has a gory element to it, Totalitarian Doctrine an anti-religious element etc – but there’s room to do that while still putting your own spin on things. 

 

For future material, though, I’d really like the lyrics to be more reflective of how we present ourselves as a band. The stuff I wrote for “The Orwellian Dream” is a lot more serious and introspective, but we’re a bunch of fun-loving idiots that just happen to be obsessed with death metal, so I want our lyrics to be similarly colorful and absurd and go more that route. All the while, I still want things to have a point and not be totally nonsensical though – that’s just who I am, and like I said all I can do is be true to myself.

 

HX: Since you mentioned influences, tell me about your influences both musically and otherwise.

 

NF: Musically we all love tech death obviously, and have a particular affinity for stuff that’s impossible to play, but easy to remember. Obscura, Anata, Conducting from the Grave, Defeated Sanity, Necrophagist, The Black Dahlia Murder, early Decapitated, early Vale of Pnath, Inferi, and Deeds of Flesh are all big influences musically and I think you can hear those in bits and pieces in our sound. I could go on…

 

Vocally, I definitely have an affinity for fast, choppy vocalists – Dennis Rondum from Spawn of Possession/Visceral Bleeding, Corpsegrinder, Derek Rydquist from Zenith Passage/The Faceless are all big reference points for me. The biggest one, of course, is Oli from Archspire. That dude changed the game. I saw them on the Relentless Mutation tour and that was a watershed moment for me – I knew afterward that I wanted to do vocals like that. If I can even be half as good as that dude, I know I’m doing something right. 

 

I also listen to current artists because I think it’s important to have your finger on the pulse of what’s hip and happening and to take notes of other people that are doing what you’re trying to accomplish. Michael O’Hara from Fleshbore, Travis from Carrion Vael and Jonatan from Carnosus are three vocalists I can think of off the top of my head who have recently inspired me and pushed me to better my own craft – not to mention try and rip them off as much as possible without making it obvious.

 

HX: I love the love for The Black Dahlia Murder. They are such a big part of our Michigan scene, even though they’re obviously an international band at this point. I think you guys pull those influences together well. I know you’ve been playing some live shows recently. Any tour plans post-release to give “The Orwellian Dream” another bump (and can we bring you to Michigan)?

NF: Dahlia is great. They did it the old fashioned way – by touring their ass off – and they came through our area (London, ON) a lot by virtue of being so close to us, so locally they have a huge influence and left a big impact on a lot of us late millennials/early zoomers that are starting bands now.

 

We’ve got a handful of shows lined up – our album drops May 24, and we’re doing a couple of release shows right before then, one in Windsor May 22 and the big hometown release show the day after in London. After that we’ve got a short weekend run in late June with some CDN Records labelmates (Korrosive, Vaginal Addiction, Blood of Christ) and Dying Remains from Alberta. I’m in the process of trying to put another run together in mid-July, hopefully dipping our toes into Quebec in the process. Hopefully, I can announce more soon. 

 

We’ve got a couple more big shows in September – playing Ontario Deathfest with Gutalax, Gorgatron and a bunch of sick locals, and then one more hometown show opening for Benighted and Cognitive. After that we’ll be laying low for a little while, mainly because my wife and I are expecting our first child and she’s due in the fall. It’s 50/50 if I’m even gonna be able to play the September shows at this point as such, but we’ll get some homies to fill in for me if I can’t. Those two were offers we couldn’t refuse.  

 

We’ll go into writing mode, good time to stoke the hype fires anyways (it’s important not to overplay your home region) and hopefully work some new songs into the set for 2025. I’d love to make it to the US sometime next year – it’s so close to us and a whole new market for us to tap into – but you gotta make sure you do it properly with visas and all that. Shit ain’t cheap but I don’t want to risk getting caught doing it the sneaky way and get blacklisted and all that. Playing outside of Canada is definitely on my musical bucket list though, I’ve never done it before.

HX: Once you figure out the visas and so on, reach out. I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I believe you’re also labelmates with the Michigan OSDM band Centenary, who are longtime friends of MoshPitNation. That could be a fun mini tour. Congratulations on imminent parenthood! I’m well down that path at this point. Lol

NF: Hell yea! Centenary rips. I also know you’re tight with Throne, who I would love to play with in the States/bring out to Canada at some point (Throne guys, if you’re reading this…wink wink nudge nudge)

 

HX: Yeah, love those guys! They headlined my 50th birthday concert in March. We have some good metal and punk over here. At the start of the interview, you talked about how hard it is to get noticed among all the other bands. What do you think makes you guys stand out? What are you doing to get noticed?

 

HX: Yeah, the States has some great heavy stuff from what I’ve heard coming out of there. Also, it seems like you’ve actually got places to play! The venue situation, especially in our hometown, is pretty dire right now. 

 

What makes us stand out, I think, is just the fact that we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’ve got the brutality and chops like any death metal band should, but we’re all just a bunch of fun-loving idiots that happen to enjoy scary music. I wear rainbow crocs onstage, our bassist wears hot pink tights, we encourage audience members to come in a banana suit (and we’ll give them free swag or get them in for free if they do so), but I think serious music paired with a non-serious delivery helps us to look a little different from the dark, scary and grim extreme metal bands, and helps us to connect with our audience a little more. It’s authentic. We’re not putting up a front, that’s just who we are on and off stage. 

 

Some might see it as a bit gimmicky, but I’d rather something that helps you remember the show. Also, I think it’s important that the music itself isn’t gimmicky. Live music and listening to an album are a completely different experience

HX: To be honest, one of the best live bands I’ve ever experienced (Baroness…4 times now) is just up on stage smiling and goofing around and obviously having fun doing what they love. To spread the word in this way, you’ve got to get people to the shows. How do you do that? Is that still a viable way to make your name as a band?

 

NF: I would say that’s the only way to do it organically these days – build up a fanbase through shows and get known for putting on a memorable and tight set. Online promo is necessary, but I’ve seen bands with a huge online following that struggle to get a crowd of 50 people out to a show, and other bands that have like less than 500 followers but can fill a 300 cap venue no problem. Word of mouth is underrated, albeit hard to quantify. 

 

We kind of did it backwards in that we played a bunch of shows long before we had any recorded music available to the public. Usually you put out a demo so people can at least see what you’re about. We’re lucky/fortunate in the sense that we’ve all been in bands before so we already had some inroads and connections when Sentiment Dissolve started to look for shows, and we’ve been really lucky to share the stage with some excellent bands and work with really good promoters as a result of that, even with nothing out to listen to. 

 

There’s no one right way to do things, and if you have a product worth listening to people are eventually going to take notice, but nothing comes without work. For local shows, I DM as many of my friends, family and people I know of that I’ve met through past shows to hand out. I try to put up physical posters. Last week at the Dying Fetus show that came through our hometown, I passed out 100 hand flyers to people and tried to have as many conversations as I could with each of them. You gotta do everything you can within your network, and then also find ways to connect with people who you don’t know either. If you’re not extroverted, you better be willing to get over that fear or at least have someone in your band who’s good with that stuff. I’ve seen a lot of bands who musically were really fucking good, but didn’t have nearly the draw you’d think they would because their members were more reserved types who hated doing promo. 

 

Out of town/distant shows are a bit of a different beast because you’ll almost certainly want to work with a local band or promoter who can get some meat in the seats. Unfortunately, unless you have a booking agent or manager or something, you’ll have to forge all those connections yourself. And the way the industry is, you’re unlikely to get an agent or manager worth a damn unless you show them you CAN do it yourself. so you inevitably will have to eat shit with your first couple out of province/country tours or at the very least do a fuckload of work putting everything together just to barely break even. Fake it till you make it or whatever.

 

HX: Sounds tough! Let’s shift gears a bit. Tell me about the album art.

 

NF: Honestly not much to tell there – we thought that piece looked cool and kinda sorta fit the theme we were going for, and the artist was having a sale so we got it at a really good price. 

 

For our next album I definitely want to get something commissioned so that we can more accurately represent our lyrical concepts and themes. Plus none of my bands have ever gotten custom artwork before. I would absolutely LOVE to get a piece from Brad Moore – I know he probably ain’t cheap, but I am enamoured with his colorful, detailed, abstract style.

HX: Very cool! That would be sick. Is there anything you’d like to add? Anything I didn’t think to ask about?

 

NF: I think you were pretty thorough! You certainly made me go on some big tangents, haha. I could talk about this shit all day, so it’s dangerous giving me a platform to do it for too long. 

 

I’d like to thank anyone who’s reading this. You’re the real MVP, supporting an underground site that covers underground music for little more than the sheer love of music and the enjoyment of being a part of it in some way. I love connecting with folks that share my passion, so please, feel free to hit me or Sentiment Dissolve up on social media and dork out about late 90s early 2000s technical brutal death metal with us. 

 

Our tagline is “stay horny”- I like to say it as we finish our set, or to bookend a social media post. I partially do it because I’m a silly goose, but I like to think that it represents maintaining your lust for life. Do whatever you do with passion and zeal, whether you work a shitty office job, raise a family, are an Instagram influencer, or just feel compelled to take a shit in public. Live your truth. 

 

So yeah. To all of you out there – stay horny!!!

 

HX: Thanks very much! I appreciate your thorough answers.

NF: Thank you for taking the time to ask these questions! It was hella fun!

 

 

Biography:  Hayduke X has been writing for MoshPitNation since June of 2016. He is also a contributor to The Metal Wanderlust. Prior to joining the MoshPitNation team, Hayduke published reviews on his own blog Rage and Frustration. In addition, he has DJ’ed an online metal radio show of the same name as his blog, written for TOmetal.com, done interviews for Metal Rules, and collaborated with The Art of B Productions to create video interviews with a wide variety of bands.