The Romanian progressive metal outfit White Walls have released today a new single and lyric video, entitled The Gift.
The Gift is the first White Walls song written to a prompt: it was made to be a part of the humanitarian project MusInk For Humanity.
MusInk for Humanity is a charity project made by Romanian tattoo artists that want to inflict a positive change in the society they live in. With this noble cause in mind, they have brought together different Romanian artists on a rock/metal compilation. Every original song is centered, in one way or another, on tattoos, and was written exclusively for this compilation.
You can buy the compilation here Tattoo Market Shop
About the concept behind their song The Gift, Șerban (bass guitars) says “It was the first time that we’ve explored the idea of writing a song “on demand”, I mean with the subject matter already known beforehand, so we thought that we would jump into it headfirst and see what will happen. Eugen wrote some exceptional lyrics, in our opinion the best lyrics so far in our career. The song revolves around the relationship between the artist and subject. In it, we illustrate a dialogue between two characters: a dying man and an otherworldly artist. The first asks the latter to “paint” on his skin all the important moments from their life and their identity – for them not to forget, to seal what is found inside and to feel that they leave something behind when they will forever close their eyes.
If you like oppressive music, and enjoy Nolan’s [movie] Memento, you will also enjoy The Gift”.
“As I depart
Make me a work of art
Trap all my sins
Under my skin “
About their musical composition process, Theo (drums) stated that: “The process wasn’t any different from what we’ve done so far, we started from one of Dasu’s ideas that came to him during a writing camp we did at the beginning of the year. The “tough bit” was carried out by Eugen, he writes the lyrics for White Walls so it was up to him to come up with the lyrics for this story.”
Almost two years since their latest album, Grandeur, the band currently wishes to step away from the traditional way of music promotion – focused on long plays. They will concentrate on smaller releases – such as this one.
The cover art and lyric video were done by Alexandru Daș, who wanted to pay homage to the philosophy behind the Japanese art form of kintsugi.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of putting broken pottery pieces back together with gold — ultimately, a metaphor for embracing your flaws and imperfections.
The song was mixed and mastered by George Lever at studio G1 Productions ( Sleep Token, Monuments).
Watch the lyric video for The Gift below:
