As the winter solstice arrives, TESTAMENT guitarist Eric Peterson and Canadian Celtic songstress Leah are revealing a brand new symphonic metal track, “Winter Sun”. Featuring soaring soundscapes, blazing guitar solos and ethereal, operatic vocals, the track sounds like it could have taken weeks to complete. In reality, “Winter Sun” was written and recorded in three days by incorporating app technology.
“Winter Sun” was recorded by five musicians between three different countries, so in order to quickly communicate internationally for free and have the track released by the holidays, the group incorporated the cross-platform communications app WhatsApp to pen the track.
Listen to the track via the official lyric video below.
As veteran yet tech-savvy musicians, Peterson and Leah feel that this new technology is completely revolutionizing the way they can pen tracks efficiently during their hectic schedules.
“Leah and I orchestrated the vocals, drums, guitars and bass by leaving each other voice messages that you can record and can leave/make decent recordings of clips of music through WhatsApp,” states Peterson. “Also, the sound quality is sharp enough that you can actually hear the dynamics well. It’s truly amazing! It’s a free app, so between Canada and Germany and Slovenia, that’s some savings, for sure! Pretty awesome!”
Leah adds: “I’m so excited about how technology has changed the music industry. Suddenly people are able to collaborate from all around the world and produce incredibly high-quality material. The possibilities are endless. Even something as simple as an app on a smart phone has completely revolutionized the way we write music. As a busy artist and mother of five kids, it was vital for me to be able to quickly record my vocal and lyric ideas and literally sing them into WhatsApp and fire it off to Eric in seconds. It made this song entirely possible.”
“Winter Sun” is performed by Eric Peterson (guitars and percussion) and Leah (vocalist, piano, harp and keys), featuring guest musicians Alex Bent (drums), Tilen Hudrap (bass), and Lyle Livingston (additional keys). Bent and Hudrap performed with TESTAMENT this year at Heavy Montreal, and all three gentlemen perform on the upcoming DRAGONLORD album, “Dominion” (Livingston is a full-time member of the band).
“Winter Sun” is a delicate blend of Peterson’s melodic side of his thrash metal background and Leah’s Celtic metal fusion. This song is all about balance, with Peterson’s signature guitar-playing style right up front and center, yet complimentary to Leah’s feminine vocals. The song later takes a surprise change of pace in which the listener will experience less of a holiday-type vibe, and more of the original styles of each artist: haunting operatic choirs and full heavy metal; no compromises.
In 2013, Eric Peterson and Leah first displayed their prowess as a songwriting duo with the track “Dreamland”.
Source: Blabbermouth
