WE EXCAVATE

The third album, "the water album"

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So this album exists as a counterpoint to Summer Sucks in some ways. While that album was sprawling, packed to burst, We Excavate is much more loose, with fairly long songs that stick to one mood and have pretty steady grooves throughout. This is "the water album," the album that's ostensibly one big ode to EAT, but also an idea that stems from being a fan of the TV show Metalocalypse, where the fictional metal band Dethklok famously made a "water album." Like, there's a vibe to that idea, it got my mind racing. We Excavate is definitely not a metal album though. It's heavy on synth and bass, it's a wandering album, a deep-sea voyage. Even the concept is a little more free-form: There is a single narrative in the album, but each song is designed to stand on its own too. Point is, this is kind of a reprieve, a moodier break in between two albums that are quite involved in their own ways. The Sunsetters project is meant to have a lot of involved music. Sometimes there's stuff that gives you a break from that.

It was still a challenge to write, though! We didn't take it easy here. I knew that efforts could be taken to make this music feel effortless. We actually wrote this album literally while we wrote Summer Sucks, so if material came about that didn't fit one album, it could go in the other. That album was, fittingly, released in the summer of 2020, and this one was released in the winter later on, alongside v3 of The Mythology of Empathy (which.. I also went and did, while finishing We Excavate. I work on a lot of projects simultaneously. it's how my brain works). If you want a rough order of the compositions, "Oxen of the Sea" came first (and "The Lonely Seas" is based on a composition from the Mythology days), "In the Sunken Blue" came next, then the title track, then "Already Out of Breath" and "The Sinking Song" sorta came together, Lindsay had both the shorter songs done, and "Lowest Point" had been worked on for a long time and was the last one to finish.

Excavate Art

Deep-sea floor, low visibility. Some tall plants stand up. A strange blue mass lies ahead.

This one was all me, doing another collage but with a heavy blur this time. The strange blue mass comes from an Odilon Redon painting, though I will not elaborate. And the "plants" are actually spikes from a graph of sentence length in Finnegans Wake. I think that was all this art needed to be; I think I was able to do something creative and appropriate using unrelated elements.

Originally, this album (under the similar title The Excavate) had a cover by Cadet. This was instead used just to inspire us in creating the music, and it also received some edits for miscellaneous art elsewhere in the release.

Submerged Within

Mellow synth intro, foreshadowing the motifs of "In the Sunken Blue," "Lowest Point," and "We Excavate."

The album begins with a synth instrumental, presenting a dramatic and moody vibe, giving us an idea of what this album's priorities are.

Here, water is all you know. All movement is slow and takes effort. If anything goes wrong, you will be crushed by immense pressures and drown. Light is something far above you, and below you is a vast darkness you usually keep your distance from. The world down here is foreign to you. Your every experience is mystery.

Oxen of the Sea
i- A | ii- ABA | iii- CAB

A long steady mellow post-rock song, exploring three moods. First has a complex drumbeat, second is minimalist, third is intense, returns to first.

The first full song, letting the atmosphere pull us forward. It's mysterious, a full-band representation of holy waters, not entirely serene.

Riverbed. You are here at the bottom of a river because of a god you call Enki. What happened is already foggy, though it is increasingly likely you angered him and were sentenced to walk the Euphrates, walk until you reach the open sea and then continue walking. Your only company is the voice in your head. I am the voice, you are the body.

It is to be a long walk. Above us, with no rational explanation in this river, are holy Leviathans, great whales, Enki's oxen.

We Excavate

Midtempo metal song mainly based around a melody from "Prelude" (off of Ancestor), bookended by a loose study on Gregorian composition.

A crunchier metal song, but still exploring a somber mood. Really groovy, chunky, and some good 5/4. As the title track, it has importance on the album, though it isn't necessarily the musical core of what's to follow. Instead, it gives us a lot to chew on.

Epipelagic Zone. You reach the global mains, where river turns to sea, where many human corpses lay waterlogged in piles. Lightning strikes from above, branching slowly down through the water, guided towards the corpses. Upon contact, you see something moving swiftly up the lightning, something which shimmers and shifts. It was a mass of souls trapped in the dead bodies. You have just witnessed the gods' feed.

You cannot make out why you did not join them, why you are still here, still walking on the sea floor. But then you hit the cliff, a steep precipitous drop, and a current pulls you on and you enter a freefall. You and I are lost in thought about what we saw, until we hit the floor.

The Lonely Seas

Synth-driven song in ABAC structure. Adventurous. Fundamental composition dates from one of the bonus tracks to Mythology v2. Ends with reprise of a Submerged Within motif, still foreshadowing Sunken Blue.

A synth instrumental, perhaps an extended interlude. It's a traveling song, showing us some sights and really making this album feel like a journey.

Mesopelagic Zone. You walk on, now in open ocean. The hills are dynamic, the sun hits the vegetation just right, and no fish bother you as if they, too, know you are ignored by the gods. There's nowhere to go but forward... forward and down.

Already Out of Breath

Playful alt-rock journey, with polyphonous interlude and bouncy 10/8 finale.

This one feels like 2000s rock, bringing a vibe I don't think the Sunsetters had done yet. There's a middle section I tried to genuinely make beautiful, and then from there the song just soars and grooves. I made this song all by myself!

Bathypelagic Zone. You have walked so far now down into the sea that sunlight no longer reaches you. This is the place they call Midnight. You must rely on your ears here, listening to the forces rushing around you. You cannot see the whale that eats you whole. I know you are crying inside the whale, but I know how to keep you calm: It's all music, the voice in your head.

It doesn't take too long before the whale dies, is cut open by the sea floor, and you are swimming free once more amidst the glowing fish, constitution renewed.

The Sinking Song

Bass-driven formal structure, a perilous encounter with abyss.

In darkness, there is a strangely peaceful danger. This is another one that was all me, this time a much simpler song with a clear predictability to it and a strong sense of rhythm.

Abyssopelagic Zone. It is endlessly dark down here, endlessly cold, littered with the dead, so rotten and scattered that it is like sand. All it takes is one stumble, and you fall into a sinkhole, where the dead Earth promises to keep you... until an arm grabs you and pulls you back to solid ground. It's.. you? An eerie doppelganger of you, with bright glowing skin and flowing hair black as abyss. Your twin leads you forward, promising safety, reassuring you of your skill in getting this far. I don't like this, but you don't listen to me, you listen to the thing that looks like you.

By the time you are led foolishly into the largest thickest strongest sinkhole in the sea, your twin has mysteriously vanished, and I am disappointed in you for bringing us here. There is nothing I can do, and nothing you can do either. Clearly the only course is to embrace the abyss, submit to sinking, and pray that there's something down there rather than just a cursed grave.

Siren of the Abyss

Gentle pretty acoustic guitar duet and synth. Ends with reprise of the Submerged Within/Sunken Blue motif.

A certified Lindsay ambient classic. Sounds like sunshine, muffled sunshine. We do need a break by this point in the album, considering what's about to come.

Hadalpelagic Zone. You sink into Earth, and I with you, cursing the Siren that doomed us. It's stifling, it's claustrophobic, benthos all around, but at least you don't have to move, you can rest as it happens. And yet, somehow, there is a bottom.

Lowest Point
i- The Holy Question | ii- Molten Rock | iii- A Piece of Disembodied Melancholy | iv- At the Edge of Knowledge

The Big One. First movement is groovy hard rock, second movement goes from metal to a long blues-y guitar solo, third movement is slow and quiet and reflective, fourth movement is fragile and graceful outro.

Do you know how hard it was to make this song? To make it groove, to make it rock, to make it flow, to make it soar? I always want every album to have something on it that is this ambitious, a full-course meal for the listener. The audience deserves to feel awe in their life, rewarded for taking the time to discover this.

Lowest Point has a downward-trending structure, taking us from confidence down to humility, passing through breakdown and depression along the way. But it's still a remarkably easy song to listen to. It wants us to have fun; it's rock music!

The bottom. You come to, and I can't believe your eyes: We're at the bottom of a deep trench, as low as one can get in the sea, and you are not alone here. Illuminated by holes in the floor, before you stands an imprisoned titan, faceless humanoid with chimeric skin, covered in crawling insects and amoeba, restrained to the rock by thousands of thin writhing tentacles that suck his blood from him passively and slowly. He knows you are there, for he says to you one thing: He fears his God.

It is an awesome and frightening sight, and yet you continue to surprise me, as you swiftly grab the sharpest rock you can find and slice at the tentacles to free the titan. I suppose your journey has emboldened you, and you think there is no use to fear the sea anymore. Well, you don't have to slice that many tentacles, as before long they withdraw with a shriek, and the titan screams "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" There's a roar from above, lightning shooting down into the trench and taking the titan's soul away. Then the holes of light below you expand, the steam vent opens, tentacles grab you, and you are dragged down deeper than deep.

What is there, under the lowest point in the sea? Magma, the flowing changing body of the Earth herself. You are too busy screaming and dissolving and being devoured by the fires, but I catch a strange glimpse: Floating in the magma around us, standing as if on nothing, are dozens of humanoids made of water, staring not at you nor at me but deeper below us still, watching over something at the Earth's core. They bring to mind overseers of a vast machine, the planet-sized machine which uses magma to digest the souls that manage to escape Enki. Besides this brief glimpse, I have no time to piece any more speculation together, as a booming voice enters your mind and claims to be you now. The voice has no room for any competing minds, so I am ripped from you and left to the elements.

Clearly my fate should have been to dissolve into the fires and join the great planet-mind with all the other lost souls. Yet that God had no need for me, and a burst of steam washed me up back into the trench. Clearly, then, my fate should have been a lightning rod, carried upwards into Enki's mighty palace where I might feed the king. Yet that God had no need for me either, or at least never noticed such a shrinking soul as me, a pathetic fool of a shade struggling to climb up the trench one thought at a time. My fate was not to perish with you, as I was ripped from you and made bodiless. I spent so long mad at you, blaming you for the Siren and the titan, really even blaming you for Enki and for our being here in the first place, but truly, what have I done by urging you to walk so far? Will I ever see you again? Would I even recognize you after what's become of you? I, the disembodied fool. I need to.. I need to figure myself out. And I need to climb.

I need to climb out of this trench and see the sun again.

In the Sunken Blue

Beginning with a reprise of The Sinking Song, it quickly transitions into a moody new-wave-y beat which drives the rest of the song.

One last mysterious groove to see us out. This is a side to Sunsetters that I'd been dying to develop, the side that makes cool beats, like electronica music. In some ways, this is the representative sound of We Excavate, and it was one of the first songs to be completed for the album.

Abyssal Zone, return. Traipsing through the Abyss, floating nebulously in the darkness, I find one last strange sight: An underwater city. Fully working, lights on, skyscrapers, endless roads and streetlights, a city designed for the surface and showing no sign of wear. I feel I see movement deeper in, but I see no people no matter where I look. Despite everything, it is a city. An empty city.

I go a few streets in, I pick a door, I open the door, I go inside. And even if you looked for me, you would not find me anymore, as I have vanished with the city, and there is only the ocean now.

After Summer Sucks turned out to be a pretty sui generis album, we definitely wanted We Excavate to feel more grounded, more recognizable as a rock album. The songs are slower, they spend more time in a smaller amount of moods, and each one feels like a well-rounded song. Of equal importance is the concept, which is perhaps more focused this time, taking advantage of the sense of mystery and the unexplained, and giving us a journey that is at-times joyful and at-times ominous. In some ways, We Excavate is the more cohesive unit.

click here for a side-ramble about developing the plot.

We Excavate is a strange mood. I think it's a powerful mood. I think both the music and the story contribute to this, each gives direction and importance to the other. And I think the music can be awfully strong! I think, in that universe where the Sunsetters are a real rock band, the band continue to refine and figure out their strengths and what kind of music they want to make. This album was the last one for a while that they got to do with their rhythm guitarist Remy Larson, besides an EP to round out the "classic era" of the band, and as an album this was a little free-form. I'm glad they got to do that.

Maybe the next story they tell will be much less free-form, and much more horrific.