Anomaly by Spiral

This is the third installment in a trilogy of records dealing with a scientist named Rip and his daughter Anomaly.

To listen to the first part, follow this link.
https://thespiral.bandcamp.com/album/ruins

To listen to the second part, follow this link:
https://thespiral.bandcamp.com/album/the-traveler



You all remember Anomaly, the Traveler’s young immortal daughter? She who received the greatest gift imaginable and spurned it. Like all children, she rebelled against all the things that were inherently given her at birth, including her immortality. So, because she could not have it, all she desired was an understanding of death. Unfortunately, that was not possible. Every time she came close to pulling back the veil the machines in her body stopped her and she was left on the precipice wondering what lay below.

That didn’t stop her, however, from trying over and over again. Almost dying in horrific ways until she knew every form of painful death imaginable. She called them her death trips.

Her father, Rip, couldn't understand his daughter. She was so different from him. He wanted her to understand the precious thing he had given her. Eventually, he realized that he had to show her the sadness that death brought to mortals. So he left her alone and traveled the universe hoping to find some way to teach her. Eventually he grew tired of immortality and dove into the heart of a sun to kill himself.

During this time Anomaly became more and more obsessed with what lay beyond death. She became a guru, a space shaman and eventually surrounded herself with people of similar mind. They became the followers of her death cult.

Eventually word reached her of her father's death. For the first time she felt the pain of true grief. She also learned that it was possible to die. So she flew to the closest star, hoping to join her father, but just as she was purged to fly into the molten mass, her father's lesson finally struck home and she realized the importance of his gift. Eternal life. Endless collection of knowledge.

So she lives on...



The demos for this album were recorded way back in late 2011, just as we were finishing up the Traveler mixes. There were three demos, and Aaron and I felt they were the best things we’d ever written.

We were in between guitarists at the time and we loved the demos so much we decided to put them away for awhile in order to wait until we had a guitarist we thought would do them justice. We focused on a little guitar piece Casey Mraz had written to a song that was kicked off the “Kindness” album (which eventually became “Centaurus A”) and from that little guitar piece grew “Mind Trip in A Minor”.

Our plan was to return to Anomaly right after, but we ended canning it in favor of a newer batch of demos that eventually spawned four records. After recording “Joy’s Egg”, we knew Bill was the right fit for the Anomaly record.

Bill, Aaron, and I made short work of Anomaly. We used the first demo, which became the first three songs for the album, as a starting point. Next, Bill recorded a song that became Death Cult, and I wrote Anomaly Dreams. Unfortunately, we canned the other two demos, but they’ll most likely show up somewhere else. We still love them.

Once the recordings were done, Anomaly went into mixing. This was, without a doubt, the hardest record I've ever mixed. Each song was this incredible slab of sound that had to be wrangled into shape. I would mix for a few weeks straight and then become overwhelmed and put the album, on the back burner. I distracted myself by making other records. "Centaurus A", followed by a slew of records for my side project, AMAE. Then I came back and mixed a bunch more. Again I had to walk away disappointed. I just couldn't get the record to sound the way I wanted it to. Again I distracted myself, this time with the rerecording of the first part of this trilogy, "The Capital in Ruins", which I shortened to just "Ruins."

Amazingly, rerecording Ruins got me very much excited about the trilogy, so I went and dusted off the old tracks and dove back into mixing. It turned out the third time was the charm. I came away with a beautiful mix that Spiral is very proud to share with you all.

It is incredibly hard work making these records, so if you enjoy this please buy it and leave us a review!

We are incredibly happy with this album and we hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it!

Listen loud!

-Chris Boat

Chris, Aaron, and Bill, the three constant members of Spiral are desert born. They played childish games amongst dunes and cacti and now, their music breathes sand.