{"id":11338,"date":"2019-02-27T16:32:41","date_gmt":"2019-02-27T16:32:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/?p=11338"},"modified":"2026-05-06T19:17:28","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T00:17:28","slug":"cell-conceptual-cosmic-metal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/2019\/02\/27\/cell-conceptual-cosmic-metal\/","title":{"rendered":"Cell :: Conceptual Cosmic Metal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Chris Bryson <\/strong>
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Winnipeg\u2019s Cell are a band fully immersed in their sonic world of cosmic black metal. Cell\u2019s vocalist and guitarist, who prefers to go by Hyperion when it comes to the band, has always been a fan of concept albums and their potential for emotional and narrative depth, and his eye for artistic detail and dedication to craft shows in the intricacies of his work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cGrowing up I know I personally floated towards the concept albums a lot. Because I found a lot of artists would put out more cathartic feelings in concept albums,\u201d says Hyperion, who played in Inverted Serenity and Entity before Cell. \u201cThey make it look like it\u2019s this big thing like it\u2019s all made up but really if you look deep, there\u2019s a lot of things that probably happened in their life that was relevant. You can break out of that shell and let go and that\u2019s what I like doing with Cell, and what we do is we can be that alternate version of ourselves.\u201d
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The band\u2019s upcoming sophomore release, Ancient Incantations of Xarbos<\/em>, is a concept album that takes place in the same universe as Cell\u2019s first record, The Frozen Moon of Erebath<\/em>. Hyperion, a sci-fi guy, says it\u2019s trippy, spacey, otherworldly stuff, leading from one planet on the last record to a new one on the next, with the world of Ancient Incantations of Xarbos<\/em> being less techy, more primal and occult.
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For the new album Hyperion wanted bigger, more modern sound, and says although there\u2019s similarities between their first album and the new one, the production is night and day. \u201cA lot of time was spent perfecting the drum sound, getting like a big sound,\u201d says Hyperion. \u201cI didn\u2019t want anything sounding papery. The toms sound big. That was the biggest thing was we wanted the drums to sound big and stand out.\u201d
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The band worked with Jamie Sitar from Outta Town Sound for mastering the album. Sitar\u2019s experience lies outside of Cell\u2019s black metal realm, but Hyperion provided him with references like Goatwhore\u2019s Constricting Rage of the Merciless<\/em> and Watain\u2019s Sworn to the Dark <\/em>for mastering, and he\u2019s super happy with how it turned out.
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Cell\u2019s sound is given a twist from the conventions of black metal by Hyperion\u2019s love for hardcore and doom. \u201cIt kind of comes out a lot with my writing when I want to go midtempo or slower, I\u2019ll just straight up jump into almost like an Electric Wizard, Conan riff, something in that realm,\u201d says Hyperion. \u201cYou don\u2019t hear that much in black metal, so we\u2019re trying to shoot for something different I guess in that realm, and I love the way it sounds. I\u2019m a pedal nerd. So getting the stacked fuzzes and distortions and like, really honing your tone, it\u2019s really fun. We had a good time doing that.\u201d
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Hyperion is a fan of literature, physics, and comic books, and loves spending time incorporating elements of these along with personal experiences into in his lyrics. \u201cLook hard into the lyrics,\u201d says Hyperion. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of metaphors for what we do as humans to this planet. You\u2019ll see it within the lyrics.\u201d
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Cell will be releasing Ancient Incantations of Xarbos <\/em>on March 8 at The Park Theatre in their live performance corpse paint on a five-band bill with supporting acts Archagathus, Altars of Grief, Ossific, and Nocturnal Departure, and a limited run of a hundred CDs available.
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by Chris Bryson Winnipeg\u2019s Cell are a band fully immersed in their sonic world of cosmic black metal. Cell\u2019s vocalist and guitarist, who prefers to go by Hyperion when it comes to the band, has always been a fan of concept albums and their potential for emotional and narrative depth, and his eye for artistic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,1739],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-interview"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11338"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11342,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11338\/revisions\/11342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ckuw.ca\/stylus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}