Doom/sludge powerhouse Boson deliver in spades when it comes to heaviness on their new album, Domain of Ember, and new song “Mass of the Phoenix,” which features Gatecreeper’s Chase Mason. Rather than tell you that the Arizona death metal frontman is a stellar fit with Boson, we let the band tell you themselves.
“This song was one of the last tracks that we worked on before entering into the studio and by far had some of the most intense energy when writing it,” guitarist/vocalist Jim Adolphson says. “It took a few months to come to what became the final draft of ‘Mass of the Phoenix’ because we kept running into roadblocks in matching the vibe of the main riff. Once the final version came to be, it seemed like the lyrical content just kind of presented itself in a weird way to me. I have always been pulled in by occultism, especially occult rituals that required death and mutilation.
“I was reading The Book of Lies at the time and came across this ritual that involved the participant eating what was called “The Cake of Light”. The cake included bodily fluids and required the participant to cut their chest and use their own blood as one of the ingredients. From a lyrical standpoint, I used the ritual as sort of a meditation of releasing negative emotions in the darkest and most vile way possible. This particular ritual seemed to be the most appropriate vessel.
“When it came time to decide on possible vocal ideas, Chase Mason from Gatecreeper came to mind immediately. His voice is so fucking nasty and heavy sounding that I felt he would be the perfect fit to tie up the end of the song as a layer alongside my voice. He nailed the part, and absolutely made the ending so much heavier than I could have done by myself. ‘Mass of the Phoenix’ is one of the tracks I am most proud of on Domain of Ember.
You can pre-order Domain of Ember through Anxious & Angry Records digitally and physically.