Apogean Unveil “Daughter of the Oak” from Upcoming Album ‘Waste Where Life Begins’

“‘Daughter of the Oak’ was the first song that Apogean composed for this album,” says Apogean. “We wanted to dive straight into this musical collection with an intensity that we’ve been seeking to deliver in our previous records but haven’t quite achieved.

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“This track represents everything that we seek to maintain and evolve in our sound, so we thought it would be appropriate to step right into it as the premier track. While introducing some fresh elements, it also maintains a technical style that we’ve developed in our previous releases.”

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Pre-order Waste Where Life Begins (vinyl, CD, and digital), plus band merch on Bandcamp or from The Artisan Era Store.

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Revisit the previously released single, “Lie in Cinder,” HERE

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Apogean is a five-piece death metal band from Toronto, Ontario, with members having various cross-genre collaborations, gear endorsements, and ventures into video game work as well as original compositions featured on ESPN.

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Apogean seeks to transcend metal’s traditional realms with their musical machinations, and their shift from the technical death metal sound of the debut EP Into Madness (2021) to the more wider-ranging approach of the debut album Cyberstrictive (2024, The Artisan Era) clearly signaled that vision. Drawing inspiration from Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 and echoing the dystopian excerpts of George Orwell’s 1984, the album digs into the hazards of modern technology.

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The upcoming album, Waste Where Life Begins, marks another evolution of the band’s sound, though it is unlikely to linger as their definable style considering their ever-evolving nature. Descending deeply into a blackened death abyss, Apogean this time also synthesizes neofolk and classical elements to weave unorthodox layers, choruses, and interludes. They surely do not solely floor listeners with their technicality, but the record is not adrift from that root, merely unmoored from it on many occasions. The songs do not follow a fixed pattern, but still conjure sheer darkness, profound complexity, and uncomfortable brutality hits and festers.

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Lyrically, Waste Where Life Begins stares down the circle of life and the futility of human existence, with each track exploring a different stage or perspective within that process. “Nassaru,” the fifth track on this album, is a tribute to the band’s longtime friend and musical peer Joshua Ward, best known as drummer for Voraath and Raphumet’s Well, as well as drum tech for George Kollias of Nile for many years. He tragically passed away on New Year’s Eve 2024 as a victim of a drunk driver.