Canadian blackgaze solo-project, Unreqvited, has just dropped the new single and lyric video “The Antimatter.” The track is the second to be taken from the project’s forthcoming seventh album, A Pathway to the Moon. The full-length has been rescheduled to a new release date on February 7, 2025 via Prophecy Productions records. Check out the new track and more below.
Pre-order A Pathway to the Moon here: http://lnk.spkr.media/unreqvited-pathway
“The next single track, “The Antimatter,” is an exploration of chaotic dissonance that transcends the palisade of precedence within its taxonomy,” mastermind 鬼 writes. “A grave tumult that culminates into a disturbed meridian of bedlam and unrest, thereafter dissipating into an apprehensive tranquility as wistful and haunting as a brooding gaze.”
A Pathway to the Moon tracklisting:
01 Overture / I Disintegrate
02 The Antimatter
03 The Starforger
04 Void Essence / Frozen Tears
05 Into the Starlit Beyond
06 Celestial Sleep
07 Departure / Everlasting Dream
Unreqvited mastermind 鬼 (Ghost) has a penchant for beautiful musical creations that reveal their claws and fangs only at closer inspection after spending some time on them. This solo project is firmly rooted in blackgaze sonic soil but has also out sent tendrils into ambient, post-rock, post-black metal, and other related stylistic strata. The seventh album, A Pathway to the Moon, is taking an impressive evolutionary leap. If the previous full-length, Beautiful Ghosts, is taken as a delicate chrysalis spun from gossamer threads of love, A Pathway to the Moon emerges as a new creature with luminous, polychromatic wings and ready to soar into stellar space. Yet still it bears claws and fangs.
One element of this significant sonic evolution of Unreqvited is the novel exploration into a predominantly lyrical realm.This step away from mostly expansive soundscapes towards more singing is also due to the transition of Unreqvited into a touring band. 鬼 carefully crafted A Pathway to the Moon with live performances in his mind. The result is an album that resembles a blackgaze soundtrack – a legacy further underlined by the artbook bonus track, which features a cover of the Hans Zimmer Interstellar composition “Cornfield Chase.”
Despite the divergence into more lyrical dimensions, A Pathway to the Moon keeps the use of lighter and more uplifting passages that were increasingly employed among the expected dark twists on Beautiful Ghosts (2021). The significant use of clean vocals throughout the album turns out in hindsight as writing on the wall about developments to come. The core elements that have shaped Unreqvited in the past remain in active service as well: Thus, the massive anthemic refrains from Mosaic I: L’amour Et L’ardeur (2018) are equally present as the simple melancholic melodies from the 2016 debut album Disquiet and the orchestral grandeur of Empathica (2020).
Ever since 鬼 conceived Unreqvited as the musical vehicle for his multi-faceted creative output and brought it to light in 2016, his project has been a constantly shape-shifting and stylistically wide roaming beast. With A Pathway to the Moon, the Canadian has once again gathered the strands of his previous works but he has also taken a creative leap of faith. A Pathway to the Moon takes Unreqvited closer to a traditional rock and metal album based on songs than ever before – yet it is also the soundtrack of a most beautiful sonic journey.
Line-up:
鬼 – All instruments, vocals, music
Guest musicians:
Benjamin V. Cooligan – Guitar solos in “The Antimatter,” “Into the Starlit Beyond”
Jamie Turton – Additional orchestration in “Overture: I Disintegrate,” “Frozen Tears,” “Cornfield Chase”
Follow Unreqvited:
www.facebook.com/unreqvited
www.instagram.com/unrqvtd