The Chronologist's House

Verdris album eight is probably the heaviest in terms of content (it has a strong symphonic metal influence) and probably the most comedic considering its gothic and romantic elements.

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It's a time-themed album, so I've gone for an antiquated, old-timey aesthetic, so lots of vinyl crackle, bells, and tinny, aged-sounding instruments. I've also made the tracks link up in slightly weird ways to play with the idea of time-shifting around. One track loops back on itself, one leads into a track later in the album, one leads back to a previous track, and there are a lot of recurring ideas that all come together at the end.

 

While I was considering the time theme, I ended up with a vague story to structure the album, about a "Chronologist" obsessively trying to make sense of a set of events in the past, and there's a missing key (either literal or proverbial) that links it all together that they are desperate to discover. This key turns out to have been hidden inside their own house all along, buried under a load of old mementos, like photos and documents and paintings, and it's been forgotten after years of not wanting to address it and instead having loads of nice mementos piled on top of it to disguise it and distract from it. It's only way too late that the Chronologist finally recognises having to pick out this key and accept its relevance, and finally stop it from secretly stealing their time while lying neglected in a drawer somewhere. As such, The Chronologist's House is very much about regrets, denial, past traumas, and self-inflicted wounds.

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