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Becoming the Archetype Singled Out Week: Breathing Light

03/30/2011
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Becoming the Archetype's brand new album 'Celestial Completion' hit stores this week. To celebrate the release we asked members of the band to tell us about some of the tracks on the album. Today guitarist Count Seth tells us about "Breathing Light":

I wrote Breathing Light late in the game for Celestial Completion. It's a long song and took quite awhile to get right. The delay guitar lead at the beginning is the first time BTA has written a riff with the delay pedal playing such a huge role in the feel of the song and riff. I'd gotten a Line 6 DL4 and had really gotten into playing with the delay and tap tempo and such.

It took Jason and I a few practices to really nail down the form of the song, but we were going for something grandiose and that's what a song like that takes sometimes. Clocking in at over 6:30, we finally got in everything we wanted without compromising it. This song features the most clean vocals for any full-length BTA metal song ever. Daniel created the main vocal melody and I came up with the harmony that follows it as a way of echoing each line that Daniel sings.

Our producer, Matt Goldman, had a lot of fun with this song especially as we settled into a really nice rock feel on the drums during the second riff. The straightforward beat allowed us to layer lots of interested textures on top of the beat. We added some vocoder vocals in the middle, kinda like Cynic would've done. Jason experimented with some Rob Zombie-like vocals over the middle section and we really just went to town on the creative aspect of the song.

That creative aspect is fully realized when the "break-down" comes in as the third riff of the song and Duck plays a salsa beat under the rhythmic guitar chugs. Jason matches the off-beat feel of the breakdown with a sliding bassline that compliments the salsa drum beat. Then, when things get really heavy, there's a violin line over everything. I felt that it would be such a great juxtaposition and anachronism of classical-feeling strings over ultra-modern chugs that we called in a friend from college to play an actual violin on the track instead of playing a string sample on my keyboard.

I love how we were able to mix a great U2-like delay sound with Rob Zombie-type heaviness and come out with a song that still makes goosebumps run up and down my arms. Consequently, it made for a quintessential last track on the album and has made at least a couple band members cry at one point or another. It's probably the most emotionally drenched song we've ever written and is gonna be a ton of fun to play live.

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen for yourself and learn more about the album right here!

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