Denver quintet NightWraith’s use of flowing water as a dominant theme in the video of new track, “Genesthai,” works perfectly with the song’s fluid movement between musical themes. “Genesthai” opens with quiet echoey guitar picking and synth washes before gradually building in intensity and reaching full blast-beat fury. Throughout the six-minute track, NightWraith—vocalist/guitarist Benjamin Pitts, drummer Isidro Soto, guitarist Igor Panasewicz, keyboardist Caleb Jose Tardio and bassist Jerry Hilger—shift comfortably between more extreme death- and black metal-influenced passages and a more classic metal gallop, all while maintaining a strong melodic sensibility. It’s dynamic, intricate and, well, it flows.
The track is taken from NightWraith’s upcoming second full-length, Offering, set for release on CD, vinyl, cassette, and digital formats on March 25 via Reaping Scythe Records. The new album was engineered, mixed, and produced by Jacob St. Amand (Ashes For the Mute) at the Shadow Temple and was mastered by Pete deBoer at World Famous Studios.
You can preorder it from Reaping Scythe Records here or from the band’s own Bandcamp page here.
Here’s vocalist/guitarist Benjamin Pitts’ take on the song and video:
“During the process of writing this song I knew we were making something special. The chorus is reminiscent of some early 2000s material from bands we grew up listening to, like Poison the Well and Cave In. It has an emotional element to it that I don’t often hear from bands that identify as death metal.
There is some really fun guitar work in this track, especially in the bridge section where there are two different melodies that sit on top of each other perfectly. The lead section, written by Igor, holds influences akin to the styles of guitar legends like Eddie Van Halen and Glen Tipton. There are also acoustic guitars that serve as rhythm accompaniment during the lead section, which is all very ‘on brand’ for our style of blackened dad rock!
The production of the video is much more artistic and serious than our previous video release for “Hedonic Adaptation”. I think this showcases our range and I love how it primarily focuses on us playing our instruments, rather than us just ‘rocking out’. It kind of ties together with the song’s lyrical theme, which is basically death of the ego. The line ‘the ego dies’ is important to the song because it means that we are able to see beyond ourselves and realize the bigger picture: that everything is connected and life is fleeting, yet beautiful.
I love how the visual concept of the video revolves around water, this is also part of the lyrical theme and represents how we are constantly moving in parallel with our surroundings and becoming part of something greater than our individual selves.”
