My solo project, Desiderium, has a new song streaming on Bandcamp. Tons of time and effort went into the writing and recording of the album, and I'm very happy with how it's turned out. However, I'm also curious to see what others may think.

In regards to the genre, I don't really know what to call it (besides a super broad term, like post-black metal). There's some black metal, some progressive rock, some shoegaze-ish stuff, ambient elements, etc. The tons of contrast between uplifting dark and uplifting atmospheres certainly doesn't make that any easier, so I've just stopped trying to place it into any one genre

Here's a link to check it out: http://soundcloud.com/michael-rumple/de ... aerial-sea

Hope you guys enjoy!

I think your time and effort have been worth it.
Some very minor aspects that I'd prefer differently, but overall great tune and production. The contrasting passages are linked well.

I would concur that your time and effort have been well worth it and it definitely shows in this song. I really enjoy the contrast between the dark and uplifting passages, I think you executed it really well and that contrast turned out to be very effective. On a side note, parts of this gave an Agalloch-ish (minus a lot of the folk) vibe in my opinion, which is always cool.

That violin type synth plays a note that could use some tweaking with its envelope, it works a lot better when you have the vocals and everything going on. While I really do not enjoy this vocal style, the music definitely has a keen sense of variation like others have mentioned and you pointed out. Structurally, and beyond the nice alterations, this does a good job at maintaining momentum. For example, that clean vocal section at around 4:30 is simultaneously a break and a build up with how the piano goes from soothing to discordant. Then when the clean vocals return I really liked how you mirrored the progression because it creates a sense of a coherent song rather than series of riffs. Nice work, and I think post-black is fine enough if you have to name just one genre.

I enjoyed this song a lot, reminded me a lot of newer enslaved. I think you did an awesome job mixing and recording this and would love to hear more.

Sounds simply excellent! congrats!

Thanks for the feedback guys; glad to hear you're all enjoying this! Also, Big_Grand, I didn't handle the mixing of this, I worked with a producer on this album (Chris Kehley at Rivalry Sound, in Rocky Mount, NC), but we both had a hand in how this ended up being mixed and produced.