Rainwound’s 4th release, United, is now available for download. You can download the EP with this direct zip file link. I will be releasing it on BandCamp, Facebook, and other places after I wake but I’ve set this to release on a timer… I am extremely happy with this EP, and I believe it is very strong.

The idea for United came suddenly on August 17th, 2011. The intro track recreating the USA National Anthem was created that day, and the following three songs were produced from then until September 7th, almost non-stop. I felt that it was something I ‘had’ to do, and I worked very hard.

This album is dedicated to those who fell on September 11th, 2001 and the families that have struggled since that day. May God be with you all.

1. Star Spangled Banner
2. Brothers
3. United
4. Forever

Cover artwork by Westin McDonald with additional text by Brandon Strader.

“United is the latest EP from Rainwound, the band masterminded by SoT’s very own Brandon Strader, and it contains 4 songs clocking in just over 30 minutes in length. Rainwound deliver a metallic form of progressive rock, complete with crunchy riffs, spacey keyboards, melodic, often times haunting vocals, and tasty guitar solos. The EP kicks off with a quick guitar take on the “Star Spangled Banner”, before launching into the quite melodic “Brothers”, an enjoyable mix of metal guitars and soaring progressive rock. Strader then takes Rainwound into epic prog territory on the 20-minute title track. This one features sizzling guitar solos, 70′s styled keyboard flourishes, and Porcupine Tree influenced vocals. There’s a great instrumental section in the middle where things go from a jazzy lead guitar solo accompanied by acoustic guitar & keys to a wild funk ‘n’ prog workout with some nasty wah-wah rock guitars and stabbing synth lines. “Forever” closes United out in majestic fashion, a somber little prog number with soothing keys, floating vocals, and tasty, distorted guitar solos. The song builds and builds to a more bombastic & heavy conclusion, and features a great synth solo to finish things out amidst some crushing riffs.

Good stuff here from Rainwound, and easy to recommend if you like melodic progressive rock with some heavy riffs tossed in. (3.5/5)”

A big thanks to Peter at Sea of Tranquility for the review.  Be here tomorrow at 9am when the EP is set to release automatically. Thanks!

I’ve painstakingly moved all of the news updates from as early as 2006 to this new WordPress-enabled version of the site. I also read the news updates as I went along, which was always the intention of making so many updates. I hope some of you enjoy the insight that comes from checking out the past stories and events here. So now that the site is WordPress-enabled, it should be a lot easier to make an update here whenever I want. Granted, most of the time I won’t have anything to talk about…. but TOMORROW the new EP is dropping!

Make sure to be here to catch the release of United! Thank you all.  Add Rainwound on Facebook and please spread the word!

Another year, another single site update. I tried to find a way to convert the site to a WordPress earlier this year, which would have really helped with much more frequent updates, but it fell through. I may devote some time to figuring it out in the near future. For now, however, I bring you the good news of a new RAINWOUND EP!

If all goes as planned, the new EP should drop in one week. It began as a spur of the moment idea on August 17th to release an EP to commemorate the 10th anniversary of September 11th. It felt like something I *had* to do, so I began work quickly with planning, writing, and recording. The intro track was laid down that same day, and is an appropriately somber rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. Following that is the song “Brothers”, and a 20-minute prog opus that I wrote everyday for a week straight. Right now, I’m finishing up the arrangement on a final ballad, as well as writing lyrics. I sincerely hope that there is time left to finish the EP and have it sound as good as possible. The production is already so much more intricate and clean that the last album, yet is not nearly as brutal.

I hope you all enjoy the new EP despite sounding much more “modern prog rock” with a stylistic 90s twinge. There’s still a fair deal of work to be done before it is completed. Wish me luck over the next week!

Peace

I am incredibly happy with how this album has turned out. I’ve worked years on it, and I almost can’t believe it is finally done. It’s almost like a milestone or a turning point in my life. I’m going to enjoy this and take a relaxing hiatus for a while. That’s not to say Rainwound is on hiatus, just me. I already know what direction I am going to go in for the next album. A lot more prog rock, I hope.

I am probably going to release the album on a torrent in the near future in 192kbps quality. It won’t be as great as the jewel case version with artwork and lightscribe disc, and CD quality…. but it will be enough for people to have for free. Probably more than enough. But nobody cares about music anymore, do they? They don’t care about the 4ths, the 5ths…… the minor falls, the major lifts…

I’m not going to put a link to a torrent site with the CD on here… that would just be stupid, as torrent stuff is illegal. In this case it isn’t really, because it would be me releasing it, but I’m not going to take the chance. So until next time…. take care.

However, things are looking up for the project. For one thing, The Ivory Chapel is going to sound better than it ever could have. The vocals are being performed with a much higher quality microphone and a pop filter. It’s still the same rural area, yet the noise creeps in on occasion and can be quite annoying, causing multiple takes.

I think TIC is going to take a similar path to my other band, In Staid Grace’s recent release. It will start foremost with the release on the internet to begin the exposure process and get the music heard. This will hopefully be coincided by a physical release that can be ordered online. Of course the donation button is still there too for those that choose to download!

I know most people probably aren’t following along anymore, as this CD has been in the making for a couple years now. I’m sorry for the wait, but it will be worth it.

Peace

So I am very happy that the band has lasted this long. A little less happy that the second CD is still not done, and that the arrangements here have been making it very awkward and the ability to do re-records has been riddled with bad luck. A lot of hardware failures have already struck while I was trying to augment the drums and keyboards. This will likely keep me from going as far as I would love to. But this isn’t Blind Guardian. No offense to them… the layers are fantastic. Great band.

Apart from the key-related stuff, I’ve also been having trouble with cut-outs in recorded audio. That’s not a good deal. But I will have to inspect each wav file when I record them to make sure there’s nothing wrong with the recording. Still, this recording should be on par with the recent In Staid Grace recordings, which came out incredibly good. I would really think that ISG was recorded in a real professional studio. But those recordings happened before these recent hardware issues. I have no idea what is going on. No worries though, I’ll figure it out.

And I will try to release a song for Christmas this year. It has been a tradition so far to release a song each Christmas. It’s totally insane, Holy Light was recorded last year for Christmas and it is actually going to appear on the album. Since there’s no room on it for new songs, I’ll probably just release one of the album songs…. maybe November 23, the opener?

If only I’d been a bit quicker, I could have released it yesterday, on the 23rd. Oh well.

God bless, and have a great Thanksgiving;

- Speak to local studios about mixing / mastering
- Work on the artwork and consider packaging options
- Update everything for these modern days with new art
- Release perhaps 4 songs for streaming
- I’d like to get 500 promotional envelopes printed for label consideration/zine

These are the things that will be on my mind and more. Your donation is appreciated now more than ever, as this new album truly is a great work and I can’t wait for all of you to hear it, especially if I am able to get it professionally mixed and mastered at a studio! Such things are quite expensive, as is packaging, etc…

These things will also take a while. Please do keep it in your thoughts and remember, and I will give updates whenever something happens, of course. The front and back covers are actually done for the CD, and I will probably unveil them (or at least the cover) sometime over spring break.

Peace!

Greetings, my friends. I’ve had a bit of bad luck lately, but ultimately I am very proud to announce that all of the clean vocals have been completed for the new Rainwound CD, The Ivory Chapel. The next step is to begin recording the harsh and scream sections of the CD, which honestly is about the same amount as the cleans took up. It’s really a 50/50 album between heavy sections and nice, clean material.

I did record one part of screams on the second song, Her Silvery Vision, yet the high end was too vicious on that. I need to wrap a towel around my microphone or something to muffle the scratch a bit. The wind screen isn’t enough.

I’m not sure if that will work, but we’ll see. I never practiced my screams since the recording of the first CD. I really have not gained a lot of harsh vocal stamina due to that, but I do believe I can manage. After recording this, and then the In Staid Grace CD entitled Revelations, I will either have the hang of it or I will lose the throat. We’ll see.

Of course I am trying to do my best with these vocal performances. I made some clean harmonies that I am truly proud of. I tried to make the performances more interesting to really give people something to listen to. I did toss in some layers on the first CD, but they were still not very adventurous. I sang all of the clean vocals on the new Subject to Thoughts CD which really let me stretch out and explore some vocal sounds and skills that I didn’t even realize beforehand.

I didn’t go as far into that on the Rainwound CD, because I wanted this one to seem more friendly and less vocally experimental, if that makes any sense. I just wanted to do what was comfortable and I knew I could handle…

I hope you guys are as excited for this new CD as I am!

Of course this college semester is in full swing, and the work takes a lot of focus and effort. It is difficult to find the chance to record the vocals for The Ivory Chapel. Progress continues, however! Slowly but surely. A friend of mine (Melinda Gramnaes) from the college painted a beautiful face for the artwork. I wish I could post that right now, but the cover really hasn’t been finished yet. Her work is great, though, and it will make me very happy to post that here one of these days. Shouldn’t be too long now, but we’ll see.

Peace