The first recorded version of Maleficarum, with Spencer Schapansky on drums.

Maspencercarum

The name for the album and this song, "Diabolos" were decided pretty well before we had ever written a single song for it, haha. A diabolos is actually a chinese yo-yo, however in greek and spanish, diablo is means devil, which lead me to the concept of "Evil Toys". Thus the name of the album "Diabolos" is actually a reference to "the Devil's Playthings" which is the concept that ties together every song on the album, each dealing with a different cardinal sin, and each about a malevolent influence on otherwise innocent characters, for no reason other than for the amusement of the audience.

The fun thing about this song is that Pt. 2 was actually written first, and later that week, I forgot where I'd heard the riff before and wrote the skeleton Pt. 1 while trying to recall it! We built on layers and layers of guitar and church organs to facilitate the musical concept behind this song, "spooky church music". The result is probably one of the more unique songs on the album!

The lyrics in part one are actually pretty straightforward, no real hidden meanings behind them.  I started with the concept of The Divine Right of Kings, which says that those in a position of power were essentially meant for it and placed into it by God. A selfish King who in his pride has rejected God's command in order to conquer and destroy the world around him, is rebuked by Him. Although his life and actions are condemned he retorts only with pride and anger. God gives him many chances to repent before finally damning him to hell, when the King commits the ultimate blasphemy, declaring himself Perfect and Equal to God in His presence.

Plaguebringer - Diabolos I

This song is another that owes it's origins to an old riff from the bank. I wrote the intro a long time ago, and some of the second riff, before I tossed it away thinking we wouldn't ever use something like this. Aaron Lang found it, showed the rest of the guys and chastised me for "hiding" it haha. Now that everyone dipped their own style into it, this is actually one of our favorite songs to play now, and I'm certainly happy with the way it turned out! Originally there was going to be a music video for this one as well, but we were ultimately unable to finance it as the majority of the costs for production and promotion were being covered by only two members.

The lyrics to this one were inspired by the movie "Veronica", about someone who is possessed by a malevolent force and made to do things to break them psychologically until the despair "sweetened the meat" enough for the demon to eat their soul. The chorus in particular was actually written super late into the album, pretty much came about when we discussed having Mick Kenney produce it, and I started listening to a TON of Anaal Nathrakh, hence the cleans over black metal and blastbeats.

Plaguebringer - Frailty

Remember when bands used to toss in an instrumental track to show off a bit and set the mood in the latter half of the album? We do, it was one of our favorite trends of the early 2000's , so we wrote one!

This song is hugely different from the rest because it was almost entirely written and recorded by one member, but the other's definitely made huge improvements to the weaker sections during the recording process. Originally the intent was to put solos over nearly every passage, but it was nice to have a good groove and eventually we decided that if it ain't broke we shouldn't fix it.

Special shout out to the 80's Keytar themed guitar solo!

Plaguebringer - Idle Hands (Instrumental)

Three Kings! Writing this song was honestly nightmare fuel. We used to call it "Cockjuggling Thundercunt" when the only part we had was the chorus, but over time it became more and more technical, sometimes too much so. We kept writing and scrapping ideas for this song literally up to and during recording for it (The solo was recorded and inserted during MASTERING). We finally agreed that not every song needed to be a 5 minute masterpiece, and settled on making this one as fast and aggressive as possible. I think that turned out for the best!

The lyrics to this one have a really interesting concept. There's a "ritual" by the same name that involves placing mirrors just outside of your peripheral vision, depriving yourself of sleep, and inducing hallucinations that involve splitting your Ego, Superego, and Id into seperate entities, all vying for dominance over the others (Three Kings). Some people have a more supernatural experience than others, but this song is about my attempt. I recognized some similarities to the characters in the book "The King in Yellow " by Robert W. Chambers, and the lyrics are a dramatization of that.

Plaguebringer - Three Kings

This is actually one of the oldest songs we ever wrote as a band, but true to form we were completely unable to play it for years, using it as a benchmark to improve our skills until it became literally the easiest song in the setlist. Vocally however, it is still the most difficult for me, due to long phrases, rapid style changes, etc.

The inspiration for this song comes from long before I joined the band. I used to walk home from my closing shift at work, and all winter long I'd pass this goth/emo girl nearly at the stroke of midnight. She'd smile at me, I'd smile at her, but I was convinced on some level that she had to be a vampire to be out that late. Nonsense of course, but I invented a whole evil back story for her to be out finding men to eat late at night, and here's a song about it, haha.

Plaguebringer - Queen Of Midnight

Maleficarum was the first song from "Three Kings". Inspired both by Obscura and Beyond Creation (it was literally called "Rough Obscura Idea/Deported Influences" at one point") we wanted to blend Neoclassical riffing and solos with spooky melodies and and aggressive delivery. We went through dozens of iterations of this song (and drummers) before finally agreeing on what we felt was the most unique and interesting. 

The lyrics for this one, inspired by 2015's THE VVITCH, tell the story of a demon corrupting youth with promises of games and livery, only to steal their souls and torment them in an act of revenge. Or in other words, Ouija boards are bad, m'kay?

Plaguebringer - Maleficarum

This song, always meant as an intro to Maleficarum, was an attempt at building a "cinematic" style intro. Building off the same style of minimalist piano and spooky strings as "Prelude" from Hallowed, and inspired by Make Them Suffer's "Neverbloom", the writing itself was completed early, but most of the focus was put into ensuring it created a proper atmospheric. 

Fun fact: the title, "Malice" is a terrible terrible joke I snuck onto the album. "Malice/Malleus Maleficarum." but I thought it was apt to describe the final product.

Plaguebringer - Malice

A orchestral version of Diabolos, Blood & Gold is in there because Idle Hands would've sounded terrible.

Diaro Irvine

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