(If you want to skip to my music discussed in this post, check it out at the Haunted Era MySpace)

When I first heard the song "The Presence is Ominous" on the album "Quintessence" by Borknagar, an obscure metal band hailing from Norway, I think that was the turning point. That was the moment when I first heard what music could be. I must have listened to that song, and subsequently that album nonstop for the rest of the week. I never knew music could even have such effects on people. I literally got a physical high off that song the first few times.

I had been listening to junk, just like "everyone else" my whole life. More importantly, music was only an afterthought to "everything else". I had been de-sensitizing my critical ear by continually listening to stuff from simplistic game soundtracks and the same few artists over and over. Without this numbing of musical openness, that first transcendental metal song never would have hit home so hard. Today, music has transformed from an afterthought into a career choice.

Needless to say, after whetting my appetite with that album, I moved on to explore more of their albums and more of the insanely vast genre that is Metal. Over time I developed a very discerning taste for the genre. Somehow, I ended up composing my own metal. In the past even before that, I had attempted composing in the same style as those game soundtracks I used to listen to, with horrendous results, but after all this good metal I felt like I had a real musical grounding now, so I decided to put together a serious "project."

Drawing on every influence of my very favourite metal bands(and there are few that I really enjoy), I created "Haunted Era." I don't play guitar, bass, drums, piano or all the symphonic instruments I wanted to use, so I programmed all of the music via my PC, Logic Audio and a whole bunch of plug-ins. I knew nothing about audio production but the music just had to come out! Despite all my hard efforts and literally hours worth of music, I had not produced a final album. Just songs, bits of songs, and ideas. What WAS done was good, though.

So, this can officially be called my first real musical endeavour - now, I'm doing mainly symphonic stuff and tinkering with audio production techniques. In the coming months, perhaps even year if it takes that long, I intend to finally complete this album, taking into account the original vision I had of a brand of metal that is all at once intimate, powerful, ambitious, dark, and complex. Hopefully with new hardware and software, newfound audio production knowledge, and improved compositional skill, I can revive this project and make it what it was always meant to be. A lot of interest was expressed in the music from very many angles, so there is no question that albums could indeed be sold.

For those into very melodic, musical metal, or those just interested/curious, you can check out a few tracks from back in the day at the Haunted Era MySpace.

I sign into that Myspace account every once in a while to check on this, but it is mostly to preserve the music I made years ago. I hope to update it again soon, with remastered, reworked versions of the tracks and finally put together a full, cohesive album.

Guys, let me know what you think! Oh, and the only problem I ever had with this "band" was the name, people didn't seem to like it. Any suggestions??

EDIT: Holy shit. Just did a google search of "Haunted Era" and found this, which I've NEVER seen before today, notice how it says "17 year old" and I'm 19 now :
http://www.sonicfrontiers.net/forum/vi ewtopic.php?t=273&highlight=&sid=bf9f5 16622a758f0a43711cf6af77eda

I deserve a label-contract, eh? Well, why don't I try to do that this year?