ANCESTOR
The second Extended Play, the heavy metal one
You can listen to the EP above by selecting a track. Or:
DOWNLOAD
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YOUTUBE
The Sunsetters EPs are less substanstial than the full albums, but they can also afford to try more experimental things. Railroad was one single 20-minute song, and Ancestor is a 30-minute suite. It probably would work fine as a single song, but if looked at through that lens, it's more like an experimental metal song, slow and plodding and sticking to downbeat doom metal moods. This is because, fictionally, it is the brain-child of rhythm guitarist Remy Larson, who is the band member most interested in metal and its historical subgenres. And, on a large-scale examination, Ancestor serves as a transition from No Entry into the fifth album, which will be a guitar-heavy, ambitious, and self-reflective return to the core Sunsetters lineup.
Ancestor has been something of a black sheep for the project. Lindsay and I actually wrote this way back in 2017, after finishing the first draft of Mythology, and over the years it would see numerous revisions that didn't really change it all that much. Fundamentally, the EP is made up of two songs Lindsay had written for other purposes and never used (now "Prelude" and "The Fog"), and one song that takes many riffs and fragments of Lindsay's and edits them together in a patchwork Jordan song ("The Drought"). Pretty much every version of Ancestor had entirely different transitional sections. This current version is probably the most dramatic rewrite, which Jordan-- that is, I-- labored over in 2025. The version of "The Drought" here is particularly different from its original, has basically become an entirely new song. The intention in arrangement here is for the songs to sound best when the EP is listened to in full.
Is this music about anything? Well, admittedly I'm not 100% sure. "The Fog" is about the Chiyou myth, and "The Drought" contains a narrative segment that distorts that myth into a body-horror nightmare, but the only other lyrics are broad and philosophical (and inspired by Finnegans Wake). I had the opportunity to make this EP into a coherent narrative, and elected not to. I think, after three Sunsetters albums (and an EP) that were all coherent narratives, there was something valid and refreshing about having this release be a free-flowing set of images and moods instead. I think that's what Remy wanted, in the Fiction. He wanted broad sweeping poetry.
Further reading:
LYRICS
FICTIONAL INTERVIEW
NONFIC PDF
Ancestor Art
Lighthouse on a harbor at sunset, overlooking black sea under heavy painted clouds.
This stems from a photograph my father took of Mevagissey harbor in Cornwall, which I played with digitally until it looked like something.
The "back" art, seen below, is a photograph that I took on a car ride outside of Manchester. I have seen actual metal albums that look like that.
Prelude
Remy Larson solo guitar, a six-minute piece in A minor, with many connections to the song "We Excavate."
It's a prelude, a tone-setter. This EP is going to fixate on riffs and patterns, and it's going to let instruments play for a while. It's a much slower release than most Sunsetters music. You just have to sit with it and feel emotions.
By Day...
Bass, with drum, slowly fixated on a circular riff.
The first transition, designed to provoke your anticipation. You want the music to go somewhere, you want it to pick up, you want it to grant you relief.
The Fog
Old-school doom metal, slow and sinister. About Chiyou, who leads the Nine Li tribes into war with the Yellow Emperor, whose schemes defeat Chiyou's army with magical fog.
This feels like 70s metal to me. I think Lindsay did a great job with the vibes, and in my editing I tried to only add to that, not change anything fundamental. The riffs are simple, the bass sings counterpoints to the vocals, and the drums groove.
By Night...
Bass and drum fixated on a similar circular riff to "By Day...", with guitar and vocals gradually rising towards an E.
The second transition, designed to escalate your anticipation. It's finally building to something, and whatever's coming will come, but the mood here is evil and anxious.
The Drought
Headbanging song exploring new circular riffs and reprising "The Fog" and "Prelude" before breakdown.
This is relief after four slow songs. It's primarily midtempo, with some stays in a faster style, and it's primarily instrumental, with most of its vocals being the same repeating lyrics. Originally a song titled "Deep Cuts," this new version is almost unrecognizable, a song that dwells in moods and asks you to dance with it.
It took a long, long time, but I'm really happy with Ancestor now. There was always something awesome in there, but the EP was so early for us that it needed a lot more work to catch up with the rest of the albums. As 2025 saw me revisit Mythology, I knew I'd have to revisit Ancestor as well. But, like. Wow, it was not easy. I'd been arranging it in a pretty appalling way before, so making any substantial changes was far more difficult than it needed to be. Musescore was not having it! I saw more crashes here than in Summer Sucks!
Ancestor is perhaps the most liable to be misunderstood. As a release, it is genuinely interested in its slower classic-metal vibes, and in the nuances of the basic musescore MIDI sound. It is a little bit of a depression in music format, but it's also a rise out of depression, and a coming-to-terms-with the more downbeat aspects of life.
Leaving, grieving
Fall then rise
Our ancestor's just our size
Taking, giving glory, wrong
We live to invent the song
There's.. something to that. There is poetry in there. So crank up the volume, put the record on, and pretend it's a forgotten metal EP, because that's what we're going for.
Thank you for listening all this way. Next time, the Sunsetters project will present a very big album to you.