Line #77 Music/Cormorant


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0000_2.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:Current line-up. Left to right: Brennan Kunkel, Nick Cohon, Marcus Luscombe, Matt Solis.]]
3	-> ''Mists once dressed these dunes\
4	Like silk upon her skin,\
5	But the ocean's bare today\
6	And the tide is coming in.''
7	-->-- "The Emigrant's Wake", from ''Metazoa''
8
9	Cormorant were a Bay Area ProgressiveMetal band formed in 2007 that incorporates [[MelodicDeathMetal several]] [[BlackMetal other]] [[FolkMusic genres]] [[HardRock into]] [[DoomMetal their music]] who are noted for being musically independent and for their poetic lyrics. The band was founded by Arthur von Nagel and Brennan Kunkel, who grew disinterested with being in a ThrashMetal group as they felt that their sound was too limited. With guitarist Nick Cohon, they formed Cormorant in 2007 as a [[PowerTrio trio]], releasing a demo and an EP. When Matt Solis joined the band after meeting at an Music/{{Enslaved}} show, they dove into writing and recording their debut album, ''Metazoa'', with legendary producer Billy Anderson.
10
11	The album was met with positive reception, and the band was awarded “Unsigned Talent of the Year” by readers of UltimateGuitar and a string of successful live shows. In 2011, they began working on a follow up which would later be known as ''Dwellings''. After it’s release, it found even more praise and recognition than their previous album did, being included in multiple end of year favorites list and recognized by Creator/{{NPR}}, Platform/{{Yahoo}} Music and WebVideo/TheNeedleDrop among others.
12
13	During a national tour in 2012, Arthur felt particularly homesick. Later that year, he left the band on good terms to pursue his career in video games with Creator/TellTaleGames. Despite this, he was still supporting the band, following their updates and being present at live shows. The rest of Cormorant responded to his departure with enthusiasm as means to further evolving their sound with new members, as they had when Matt first joined the group. After searching for a replacement, they found Marcus Luscombe who took over being bassist and lead vocalist, and co-wrote the lyrics to their last album alongside Solis.
14
15	They broke up[=/=]put the band in hibernation in 2019, stating "[O]ur lives have been moving in different directions over the past year, with relocations and life changes having a larger effect on the band than ever before. It’s clear to all of us that in order to give Cormorant the respect and attention it deserves, we have to step away, at least for the time being."
16
17	Their Bandcamp profile can be [[https://cormorant.bandcamp.com/ found here]].
18	-----
19
20	-->'''Members (Founding members in bold, past members in italics):'''
21	* Nick Cohon - guitar
22	* '''Brennan Kunkel''' - drums, backing vocals
23	* Marcus Luscombe'' - lead vocals, bass (2013-Present)
24	* Matt Solis - guitar, backing vocals (2008-Present)
25	* '''''Arthur von Nagel''''' - lead vocals, bass (2007-2012)
26
27	->'''Discography''':
28	* 2007 Demo
29	* 2007 - ''The Last Tree'' EP
30	* 2009 - ''Metazoa''
31	* 2011 - ''Dwellings''
32	* 2014 - ''Earth Diver''
33	* 2017 - ''Diaspora''
34
35	!!Tropes associated with the band:
36	* AnAesop: "A Howling Dust" is one giant (and tragic) anti-racial message.
37	* AlbumIntroTrack: “Eris”
38	* AprilFoolsDay: The band usually has an [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments April Fool’s joke]] planned:
39	** They recorded an intentionally terrible rap song saying it was their new style.
40	** In 2012 the band wrote a note on their Facebook page announcing that they were the winners of the Mega Millions jackpot and had bought Creator/RoadrunnerRecords. The article has several (playful) [[TakeThat Take Thats]] at many bands including Music/DreamTheater, Music/{{Bathory}}, Music/{{Nickelback}}, Music/{{Gojira\|Band}}, Music/AnalCunt and Music/{{Dragonforce}}. They also said that they will endorse green-friendly fashion that will be taking over Finland, include commentary tracks from Arthur’s guinea pig that comes with a Subway footlong sandwich, have their albums included with anti-piracy spyware that will cause a computer to explode, and remove 20 minutes from each album to have fans pay extra for Main/{{DLC}} as well as eventually releasing an “[[LimitedSpecialCollectorsUltimateEdition ultra tournament edition]]” album bundle with Creator/{{Capcom}} that will include [[SpecialGuest guest appearances]] from everybody’s favorite characters [[ButtMonkey except]] Franchise/{{Megaman}}. When asked about how fans would react to this, von Nagel replied with “[[PrecisionFStrike Fuck]] our fans”.
41	** After Arthur left and fans were worried about the band’s lyrics taking a major hit, the remainder of the band jokingly posted intentionally cheesy lyrics that were written by Matt Solis the following April Fools.
42	* TheBandMinusTheFace: After Arthur’s departure. The general consensus among fans seems to be that he was irreplaceable as a lyricist, but their music is still great.
43	* BlackMetal: Influenced, but most noticeable on ''Dwellings''. They then became a full progressive black metal band on ''Earth Diver''.
44	* CarefulWithThatAxe: von Nagel’s screaming at the end of “Two Brothers” in particular is truly horrifying,
45	* CoverDrop: Most of the images/scenes on ''Dwellings'' are in reference to at least one song on the album. Even the instrumental “Confusion of Tongues” is represented with the Tower of Babel. The art makes a lot more clearer once the lyrics are read and the theme of immortality becomes more apparently.
46	* DarkerAndEdgier: ''Earth Diver'' returns to Cormorant's heavier output, with more darker-sounding music and more heavy-handed lyrics about betrayal.
47	* EpicRocking: Being a ProgressiveMetal band, some of their songs have exceptional length. “Ballad of the Beast”, “Hanging Gardens”, “The Emigrant’s Wake”, “Funambulist”, “Unearthly Dreamings”, “Waking Sleep” and “A Sovereign Act” all clock-in around 9-12 minutes in length.
48	** From ''Diaspora'', “Migration” is twenty-six minutes long, while “Sentinel” is nearly sixteen.
49	* FadingIntoTheNextSong: "Sky Burial" into "Voices of the Mountain"; "A Howling Dust" into "Unearthly Dreamings"; "Eris" into "Daughter of Void".
50	* GenreShift: Started as a straightforward melodic death metal band with one progressive metal track on ''The Last Tree'', became a progressive death metal band with folk and black metal influences on ''Metazoa'', became a progressive metal act with harsh vocals with doom passages on ''Dwellings'', and became a folky blackened progressive metal band on ''Earth Diver''. ''Diaspora'' essentially takes the progressive aspects of their style up to eleven, with a total of four songs on an album lasting about an hour. These guys hardly stick to one sound.
51	* {{Instrumentals}}: “Voices of the Mountain”, “Confusion of Tongues”
52	* LeadBassist: Arthur von Nagel and Marcus Luscombe are both Type B. Arthur is also a Type C for his lyrical output, noted by fans and critics alike as being [[ShownTheirWork accurately well-written and poetic]] for their genre, although Matt and Marcus certainly are no slouches when it comes to this after von Nagel’s departure.
53	* LongestSongGoesLast: Every release of theirs with the exceptions of ''Metazoa'' and ''Assorted Jams: Vol 2''. ''Diaspora'' in particular jumps up from the already sizable 15:51 with "The Sentinel" and ends on "Migrations" with a whopping ''[[EpicRocking 26:15]]''
54	* MelodicDeathMetal: Until ''Dwellings''. They still have influences of it, but is no longer as prevalent compared to ''The Last Tree'' and ''Metazoa''.
55	* MetalScream: How they tend to start their albums and a good amount of their albums off.
56	* OddNameOut: They are included in this wiki's lists of BlackMetal and MelodicDeathMetal bands. Bands in those genres tend to have names based on religion, violence and folklore, either individually or in combination. And then we have Cormorant, named after a common sea bird.
57	* PissTakeRap: Apparently, the band recorded a [[HipHop hip-hop]] song with intentionally bad and autotuned rapping for an April Fool’s joke.
58	* PowerTrio: Until 2008, when Solis joined the group.
59	* ProgressiveMetal: Throughout their career, although averted on ''The Last Tree'' [[EarlyInstallmentWeirdness until the final track]]. Because of the band’s wide variety of influences, most listeners end up categorizing them under this.
60	** The fact that [[GenreBusting their genre of music is so hard to describe]] has been lampshaded by the fans as well as the band themselves, who tend to make up their own genre labels ranging from “Tiberian Ass Bastard Folk” to “Post-Black Weird Shit”.
61	-->'''Matt Solis''': Our sound is sort of hard to classify: do you call us "blackened death folk" or "progressive black metal" or what? So to bypass all the bickering, we jokingly align ourselves with a made-up genre. And to clarify, there should be a hyphen in there: Tiberian-Ass Bastard Folk. It's not anything serious, we're not going to try to start a revolution or something pretentious like that...it's just a funny way to describe something that a lot of people have a hard time describing. I think genre specification is stupid to begin with, though. [[NotSoDifferentRemark It's all rock and roll when you get down to it]].
62	* SopranoAndGravel: Though their main vocal style is growled or screamed, they sometimes have clean vocal parts as well. Sometimes, as on "Ballad of the Beast", these are provided by guest female vocalists, and sometimes they're provided by the band members.
63	* SpecialGuest: Aaron Gregory of Music/{{GiantSquid}} appears on “Hole in the Sea”. Billy Anderson, producer of ''Metazoa'', also delivers some backing vocals in the beginning of “Scavengers Feast”.
64	* SpokenWordInMusic: “Scavenger’s Feast”, where an interlude consists of the band members and other people in the studio at the time reading excerpts from different books layered on top of each other in [[BilingualBonus various languages]].
65	* SurprisinglyGentleSong: Not the most contrasting compared to a lot of other examples due to their heavy folk influence, but the closing track on ''Metazoa'', “Voices of the Mountain”, is a beautiful guitar duet between Nick and Matt with the soft crackling of fire in the background which is a contrast to the progressive death metal music of the other tracks on that album.
66	* {{Sampling}}: Occasionally used in their full-length albums.
67	* StartMyOwn: How Cormorant came to be.
68	* UncommonTime: They’re ProgressiveMetal, so you can expect lots of complicated time signature changes.
69	* VocalEvolution: Arthur von Nagel used more [[HarshVocals black metal shrieking in addition to his death growls]] on ''Metazoa'', and [[NewSoundAlbum completely replacing the latter with the former on ''Dwellings'']]. Marcus Luscombe sometimes throws in guttural growls in addition to his shrieking for ''Earth Diver''.
70	** When Matt Solis joined the band, more clean backing vocals provided by him and Brennan (and Nick at times as well) are apparent throughout their career in addition to both Arthur and Marcus switching between clean and harsh singing.
71
72	!!Their lyrics contain tropes of:
73	* TheAlcoholic: The narrator’s [[PapaWolf father]] in “A Howling Dust” is definately one, and it eventually is the cause of his demise.
74	* AndIMustScream:
75	** The damned in “Hanging Gardens” are described to be groaning cadavers wrapped in funeral pall begging for a second chance to pass Heaven’s gate, while others are hanged from trees warning trespassers to turn back in order to avoid their fate.
76	** In “Hole in the Sea”, the narrator is [[SwallowedWhole swallowed whole]] by a [[SpaceWhale whale-like creature that is a possible deity]]. He awakes to find himself having been digested by the creature and is fully conscious, being able to hear cities and people dying as the whale brings about the apocalypse. After the last of humanity has died, his soul is spat out onto the remains of the destroyed Earth to which his body starts to become the vessel [[RestartTheWorld in which new life will grow]].
77	* AxCrazy: The narrator of “The Purest Land” and the group in “Mark the Trail”.
78	* BadassBoast: The lyrics of “The Purest Land” tend to fall under this from the perspective of Lope de Aguiree, making Arthur take up a noticeably [[LargeHam hammy singing style]] for the song. Also dabbles into [[TheReasonYouSuckSpeech The Reason You Suck Speech]] at times.
79	* BilingualBonus: “Uneasy Lies the Head”, “Funambulist” and “Junta” contain passages that are written in French, which is fitting because those songs either take place in French-speaking countries or have characters from France.
80	** An interlude on “Scavengers Feast” contains spoken word passages from multiple people in various languages from both the band and others.
81	* BodyHorror:
82	** Light example in “A Sovereign Act” which includes a few passing mentions of the conditions that the narrator has, which are not quite beautiful.
83	** Subverted in "Waking Sleep", as it excludes the self-mutilation from the source material.
84	* CallBack: A possibly unintentional example. The lyric theme of “Daughter of Void” brings to mind “The Emigrant’s Wake” (that is, a young boy drowning himself).
85	* ConceptAlbum:
86	** ''Metazoa'' is described to be about man’s animistic nature as a collective whole. Each song makes at least one reference to an animal as well, although this was said to have been unintentional by the band.
87	** ''Dwellings'' is described to be one. In addition to each song being about a certain structure or based around a location, each of the songs are linked to the common theme of the path to immortality and how far man is willing to achieve it.
88	** ''Earth Diver'' has a theme of conspiracy and deceit going around its lyrics.
89	* {{Creepypasta}}: “Waking Sleep”, which is based on the events of [[http://creepypasta.wikia.com/wiki/The_Russian_Sleep_Experiment “The Russian Sleep Experiment”]].
90	* CruelAndUnusualDeath: The tyrant in “Uneasy Lies the Head” is a shining example of this. He is publicly humiliated and has a gunshot wound in his jaw, possibly from an [[BetterToDieThanBeKilled attempted]] [[BungledSuicide suicide]]. When he tries to give his final words, his mouth becomes unhinged as birds peck at his flesh, which is described to be so horrific that it “makes even soldiers cringe”. He is then [[HoistByHisOwnPetard executed by]] [[OffWithHisHead guillotine]], which raises an uproar from the crowd of onlookers. This is describing the real life death of Maximilien de Robespierre.
91	* DeathOfAChild:
92	** In “Scavengers Feast”, “Blood on the Cornfields”, “The Emigrant’s Wake”, "The First Man", “Junta” and “Daughter of Void”.
93	** Avoided in “A Howling Dust”, [[MurphysBullet but not without being shot in the leg with a stray bullet]], possibly [[HarmfulToMinors witnessing a horrific murder]] and crossing the DespairEventHorizon.
94	* DeepSouth: “Blood on the Cornfields” takes place in this, following the plight of Nat Turner.
95	* DespairEventHorizon: Common. “Rain Follows the Plow”, “Ronin”, “Hole in the Sea”, “Junta”, "A Howling Dust", “Unearthly Dreamings”, “The Pythia” have protagonists who go through one. Tends to cross with DrivenToSuicide as well.
96	* DontGoInTheWoods: "Mark the Trail"
97	--->Those who dare to walk in the forest\
98	Be wary, there is trouble abound\
99	A new breed of humanity\
100	Surviving by hunting you down
101	* DownerEnding: An amount of their songs tends to lead to a depressing climax that it would be easier to list examples that did not. The biggest example is “Junta” where a huge amount of civilians are massacred in broad daylight, women were [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil raped]], stores were looted, a [[MissingChild child went missing]], [[DrivenToSuicide a girl commits suicide]] as a result of being [[RapeAsDrama raped]] and the one who orchestrated it all ended up getting away with it.
102	* DrivenToSuicide:
103	** “Rain Follows the Plow”, “Blood on the Cornfields”, “Hanging Gardens”, “The Emigrant’s Wake”, “Junta”, “Daughter of Void”, and “Sold as a Crow” all include this trope, sometimes in a first-person narrative and as the main theme of the song. Debatable in the case for “Unearthly Dreamings”.
104	** “A Sovereign Act” crosses the line between this and FaceDeathWithDignity.
105	** InterruptedSuicide in “Ballad of the Beast”, as the narrator was about to jump off a ledge to fulfill his death prophecy before an angel catches him.
106	* DyingTown: At the conclusion of “A Howling Dust”, almost everybody leaves the town when the gold runs dry. The town that the real life equivalent of the story took place in, Hornitos, CA, is an actual GhostTown.
107	* EyeScream:
108	** The battle between the two elk in “A Dance of Elk Entwined” concludes when one impales the alpha male through the eye with their antler, killing him.
109	** “Trojan Horses” has the line “You steal a blind man’s eyes”.
110	** “Junta”, with “Bayonets puncture eyes” as it describes the massacre.
111	* FaceDeathWithDignity:
112	** In the final verse of "Blood of the Cornfields", Nat Turner is said to be grinning as he was being put to death, true to form.
113	** "A Sovereign Act" is about the hotly debated Death With Dignity act, inspired by the documentary ''How to Die in Oregon''.
114	* GaiasVengeance:
115	** “Hole in the Sea" has the Earth destroying all of humanity and their creations in the form of a SpaceWhale. Or something like that.
116	** “Scavengers Feast” has something like this going on, if not AfterTheEnd.
117	* GovernmentConspiracy:
118	** “Sold as a Crow” is about a series of MK Ultra tests that were conducted and covered up by the CIA, hence the title.
119	** “Waking Sleep” is another example, where five men are kept awake for days and driven to insanity as a result.
120	* HorribleHistoryMetal: And how! ''Earth Diver'' started to incorporate a few urban legends and folklore into their lyrics.
121	* HorsemenOfTheApocalypse: “Trojan Horses” mentions them, and the main character is Death itself.
122	* HumansAreBastards: The band is not exactly subtle about their subject of human brutality and how they endanger the environment and themselves.
123	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: Avoided in “Ballad of the Beast”, where Jesus Christ is saved from his crucifixion by {{Satan}} himself and an archangel.
124	* KarmaHoudini: The soldiers in "Junta" and the government agents of "Sold as a Crow" get away with their crimes.
125	* MissingChild: Aside from children dying (sometimes horrifically), “Junta” also plays on the fear of losing one’s child. A family is described having a son who went missing in the ensuing chaos. In the end, his body was never recovered.
126	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone:
127	** In "Junta", a woman is gang-raped in turn by a group of soldiers. This is only stopped when one of them recognizes her and lets her go.
128	** The narrator and his father in "A Howling Dust".
129	%%* OffWithHisHead: “Uneasy Lies the Head”, that wears the crown.
130	* OutlivingOnesOffspring: In “Daughter of Void” the father is among the tribesmen who find the body of the drowned boy floating in the water after having warned him about the creature that was the cause of his death.
131	* OurSirensAreDifferent: “Daughter of Void” features the Qalupalik; an Inuit mythical whale-like HumanoidAbomination that coaxes a curious boy to his death with a flash of her emerald tail and a [[CompellingVoice humming sound]].
132	%%* PunctuatedForEmphasis: “Trojan Horses” is filled with this.
133	* RapeAsDrama: “Junta” includes a truly tragic example of this. The narrative shifts to a young woman who is raped by a group of soldiers, who let her go [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone after one recognizes her]]. The song then describes how she is [[DespairEventHorizon unable to sleep or talk about her experience]], and at the end of the song it is revealed that she [[DrivenToSuicide killed herself]].
134	* ReroutedFromHeaven: The narrator in "Hanging Gardens", self-described as free from sin, is denied entrance into Heaven and is pushed towards Hell.
135	* RestartTheWorld: Revealed to be the reason for the events of “Hole in the Sea”.
136	* {{Revenge}}: Revolutions and revolts are present in some of their lyrics: “Uneasy Lies the Head”, “Salt of the Earth”, “Blood on the Cornfields” and “The Purest Land”. [[PapaWolf “A Howling Dust”]] provides a non-revolutionary example of this trope.
137	* RevengeByProxy: In “Blood on the Cornfields, when the slave owners start to murder those not involved in Nat Turner’s rebellion due to the color of their skin. Similarly done in "The First Man" as well.
138	* ShownTheirWork: Cormorant’s lyrics tend to be accurate retellings of historical events, with a lot of attention to detail put into them. They are very much praised for this even by non-metal fans.
139	-->'''Arthur von Nagel''': In the Music/{{Iron Maiden}} tradition, I’m a massive history nerd, so I’ll often conduct several weeks of research before adapting any real life events to lyric form. And then of course the lyrics themselves go through dozens of tweaks and rewrites. A strong marriage between the words and music is essential to me, so there are always modifications made when combining the two, and we don’t have any hard and fast rule regarding which is written first.
140	* ShellShockedVeteran: "Ronin", an incomplete song from their first demo, is all about this trope along with SurvivorGuilt.
141	* StylisticSuck: Whenever the band opts for an AprilFoolsDay joke, they use... considerable less effort in their music and/or lyrics for comedy.
142	* TruthInTelevision: As is the case for HorribleHistoryMetal, a lot of their songs are very accurate as mentioned in ShownTheirWork.
143	%%* WarIsHell: “Scavengers Feast” and the unfinished song “Ronin”.
144	* WhamLine: “Waking Sleep”, where after the conductors of the test dread that something was wrong after a prolonged period of silence from the subjects:
145	-->And now the voice from the ether announces imminent breach.\
146	And from the first they encounter, “We don’t want to be freed!”

Context Music / Cormorant