DESCENT | INTERVIEW + TRACK REVIEW

In an era where heavy music is increasingly built inside a computer before it's ever played by human hands, Descent are moving in the opposite direction. Their latest EPs, Descent and The Gates of Purgatory, were recorded with an almost stubborn commitment to real performance — no quantized drums, no programmed parts, no pitch correction, and very little interest in chasing modern perfection.

For Descent, heavy music isn't about flawless execution. It's about energy, atmosphere and capturing a moment before it's lost. We caught up with frontman Mike to talk about recording philosophy, old-school musicianship, stage chaos, inhale vocals, and why sometimes the most honest version of a song is the one that leaves a few scars behind. This is a paid collab with Descent.

TRACK REVIEW - EYES

Descent waste absolutely no time on “Eyes”, opening with an intro riff that had me ripping my hair out before suddenly exploding into a perfectly timed “GET THE FUCK UUUUUUP!” What a way to kick off the There Will Be Blood EP.

One of my favourite moments arrives around the 55-second mark, where the pulse of the track shifts gears and locks into a crushing groove. The throat-shredding scream that follows keeps the momentum building, while the subtle high scream panned off to the left adds an extra layer of chaos that I absolutely loved. It's a small detail, but one that elevates the whole section.

What surprised me most about “Eyes” is just how melodic it is beneath all the aggression. The vocal melodies and hooks are incredibly well written, giving the track a memorable quality that sticks. There’s a genuine balance between brutality and songwriting here, something a lot of heavy bands struggle to achieve.

If you're a fan of metal that values energy, atmosphere and memorable hooks just as much as heaviness, Descent should already be on your radar. If they aren't, it's only a matter of time.

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The fact both EPs were recorded without quantizing, programmed drums or corrective studio tricks feels almost rebellious now. Was it important for Descent to sound human before sounding “perfect”?

Very much so! We have always been a band that believed in authenticity and accountability when it comes to our music, for no more fitting reason than why would we want to fake something instead of play it as we wrote it? What’s the point of even putting effort into making sure you are on point with your parts if you can just slop through them and fix things later?

I understand a punch in here or there just to make sure the key parts are represented correctly; because even the best player has to deal with human body limitations, fatigue, adrenaline, environment distractions; which can cause a slip during a take and it’d be a shame to throw away magic takes because of a bad note here or there.

But that human liability is what gives the part life. That’s the only way to really transfer yourself into the performance, but leaving it as you played it as much as possible. No looping sections so you don’t have to be bothered to play the whole song all the way through hahaha. The riffs at the beginning of the song shouldn’t have the same stale feel at the end because you’re putting the energy of the whole journey into it.

You can feel the energy of the player as the story of the song plays out. You’re not as tired during the intro as you are cramping up during the outro breakdown after ripping up the fretboard for 4 minutes straight. I guess that’s a long winded artsy way to say “if you can’t play it right, then practice until you can, or don’t record it.”

If your drummer can’t keep steady time, then he needs to practice, change the part, or get a drummer who can. If your guitar player can’t rip the solo, same thing. And to quantize things to be “perfect” then it will never be unique.

The point of doing multiple guitar layers is to get the slight imperfections that widen the sound rather than just making sure every string pick lands on the same microsecond or whatever defeats the purpose of multitracking live parts.

Making a record is you basically creating the “original essence” of the song to be catalogued into history. You can play a song a thousand times, but the first time you record it and release it; that’s how that song’s vibe and sound will be logged into history. It really is capturing a moment that can never be repeated so you want it to sound the best it can sound but also retain your signature, your DNA, in the way you played it.

Once you fix and move a bunch of parts then you can’t honestly say you played that song as it exists in history. You might’ve kinda played it, but the studio magic really gets credit for the song existing. And that’s not a credit we’re willing to give up after working so hard on what we created on our own.

A lot of heavy bands build songs in a DAW first and figure out how to play them later. You took the opposite approach. Do you think recording music as close to live as possible changes the emotional weight of the final product?

I mean, bands have been building songs like that since the multi track tape recorder was invented if you think about it.

I can recall the many hours I’d spend recording and then layering riffs over riffs when I’d be writing stuff on my own to see what sounded cool together, but I wouldn’t say it was building it then learning it.

I think when bands build the song in the DAW then learn it goes back to not really playing what you hear in the end. That’s where programmed drums are used and guitar effects tricks are thrown in like glitch samples and stuff that they can’t actually recreate live and then they get stuck dividing up parts between backing tracks and what they’ll play live, which can be hard to properly replicate.

Plus when you start with an infinite blank slate of options, you can overdo it and lose the bones of what the song is about.

When we record our tunes, we’ll start with drums and do scratch guitars then I’ll lay down the main two guitar parts all the way through that would be what we play live. And whenever I lay down the 2nd guitar layers I can never not throw in some random unplanned harmony here or there that give the parts some character; and those parts tend to always change when and where when played live depending on how I’m playing that night, but those are happy accident expressions that I sometimes have to remember I even did!

But to sit down at an empty DAW and build the song by pressing buttons on a keyboard should always only serve as a rough draft that you record properly for real later.

If you’re having to learn your own song from the record because you’ve never actually played it, then it’s not really your song. It’s just your idea for a song that you’ve never played.

Music shouldn’t come from a circuit board with a fast CPU, it should come from your fingers, from your soul, then captured on a fast CPU to be shared with the world!

Now that the recordings are so rooted in real performance, how has that shaped the live show? Does it create more pressure, or more freedom?

It made the live show way more fun that’s for sure! And it was definitely less hassle in terms of being able to reproduce the same sound and energy live as there is in the recorded version.

And it gives us the freedom to adjust things in real time, we get to feed off each other’s energy rather than try to keep up with a static unforgiving predetermined click. Hard to recover seamlessly during mistakes if you’re playing catchup instead of just going with the flow.

I think most of the audience of today just want it to sound perfect and what they expected; so they don’t care if bands use a billion tracks if that’s what it takes, but there’s still the fans out there that don’t want to be lied to. That aren’t there to watch a theater play, they are there to see the band rip the stages up actually playing their parts and actually getting as tired and as sweaty putting their all into the show, and knowing the sounds of the songs at that show will be unique to that show, their little piece of the music that only they experienced instead of a consistent performance show after show that are so watered down to the point of always sounding the same then they lose the personal experience they came to the show to get!

It also helped with gear setup, we didn’t have to sync all kinds of extra stuff up and figure out how to run those parts and play our parts etc. This way each guy has his gear and the sound guy has no surprises or weird issues to solve every show.

I’ve often noticed during the show everything seems way crazier and louder and then you go back and watch video and I’m like, alright well that’s not quite as crazy as it was at the time, which can make mistakes forgivable in the moment but hard to ignore when watching back later.

So there’s always a plus and minus to doing things live and unscripted but that’s what makes metal so much fun to play. It has an allowance for chaos that helps amplify that moment, it makes you wanna be right there every time, and that’s the best thing music can do, that’s what keeps fans coming to shows and keeps musicians wanting to play shows! Not just record a song once and live off streams.

Your vocals have a really distinct intensity to them that doesn’t feel overly processed or artificial. What do you think separates a believable heavy vocal from one that just sounds aggressive for the sake of it?

You wanna know the secret? All my growls and screams are inhale vocals.

I always had sort of a kid sounding tone to my singing voice and when I tried to sound growly I’d just end up sounding like a whiney pirate. Hahaha. I don’t remember what started it, but whenever I’d hear death metal vocals go so low, we used to kind of make fun of it but like sucking in to make it real low and airy.

Eventually I realized that was the only way I could really do the growl voice low enough to be heavy and not sound like a little angry kid.

The more I did them the more control over them I got and I could fluctuate between really low and high screeches back and forth so freely that it gave them sort of an unstable demonic feel as if there’s more than one demon coming out.

When recording them it was always hit or miss depending on the day since my throat kinda has to be the right point of roughed up scratchy but wet and loose otherwise my throat pinches up and it comes out as a squeak instead of a screech!

I don’t have any formal vocal training so I don’t know how to properly warm up for inhale growls but so far I found that the best method for pre-show vocal tune ups is to just start kinda dry hacking to the point of gagging, which can be pretty disturbing sounding coming from the dressing room haha. Or warm salt water gargling… and some whiskey gargling. Then some more hacking up until I’m good and worn in feeling.

It’s all about the way I pinch the air intake and how it moves past my throat that gives me the low gutturalness in a reverse way than screaming it out tearing up my throat to make it scratchy. If I start kinda scratchy then I’m just intaking air to soothe it again haha.

Yeah but all my vocals that aren’t clean are me inhaling.

When it comes to recording vocal layers, I usually do one main track, then one almost identical second main track panned right down the middle, right in your face. Those are the parts I kinda blend when I sing live. Then I usually do some hard panned L/R background screams and growls to emphasize parts or as background atmosphere parts kinda thing that are only on the record just enough to not be missed live, replaced with the energy of the show.

When I do any clean singing, it’s all effect free, no autotune or anything to give me talent I don’t have!

I’m always hearing 10 different harmonies to every part in my head and when I go to lay down multiple harmonies I lose track and mix up high ones with low ones or I’ll be searching for what I think is the note and be slightly off enough so it’s kinda off a bit, making it not be so pretty but more metal.

Every time I hear Trent Reznor sing on the NIN records, he has this thing where he can’t quite sing right on key, sad emotional kinda feel. The imperfectness of a dreary note drag here and there really sells the darkness in the lyrics sometimes.

There’s something almost old-school about your philosophy toward recording and performance. Do you feel disconnected from the hyper-polished side of modern metal culture?

Honestly the core of the strong push for old school approach is lack of current technology awareness. Hahaha.

When we started back in 1998 we were kids and recording music was done by experts in studios in buildings and how everything happened from pressing record and jamming to getting a final mixed and mastered product was a mystery we didn’t know anything about.

So my personal knowledge stopped right there, so after our 20 year hiatus, that’s where I picked back up from.

And I really wasn’t aware of the latest trends and tech that bands started doing in effort to raise the bar in sound quality, sound consistency, perfect timing and performance, perfect pitch, all that stuff was for popstars and boy bands. Metal bands didn’t need computer fakery then why does it need it now?

And I think we got to the top of the recording and producing technology peak a while ago and now it’s doing more harm than good. There’s nothing edgy or raw or relatable hardly in metal anymore. It’s all this mush overprocessed unrealistic sounding wall of noise that every band tries to copy like there’s only one formula to metal band sound, anything less is amateurish, which is really opposite.

Professionals at metal can kill it with an amp, a guitar and some drums. Amateurs at metal need gadgets and tricks and assistance to be as brutal as the professionals. And it just sucks the energy out of being a musician.

Heavy music is often obsessed with precision, but Descent seems more interested in energy and impact. At what point does “perfect” actually start killing the feeling of a song?

I kinda feel like the term “perfect” can be misleading — there’s different meanings for perfect when it comes to music and how it’s expressed.

There’s inside the lines, proper tone and no mistakes. Every note played as it is written on the paper and put exactly where it goes in time inside the DAW.

Or there’s the “perfect” that’s achieved by successfully expressing what was in your head with your fingers until what your ears hear match your idea.

So I’m against inhuman only achieved in post “perfect”.

That’s really telling everyone that perfect just means faked.

Perfect performance is when that riff ends just right or that note slides right into the next part just how you wanted, not how it should be within a grid.

Perfect is when the song in your head can be heard by someone else’s ears.

Your stage setup and props clearly matter to the atmosphere of the show. When you’re building the visual side of Descent, are you trying to create a world for people to step into?

Of course!

During our hiatus I tried my hand at becoming a rapper, since it was something I could do by myself and not have to have 3 or 4 other guys to make music; and the thing that really blew my mind is the absence of amps and drums onstage which to me gave each band their “stage look” ya know, it helped differentiate the artists by what gear was behind them, what the drum kit looked like, etc. The gear were the stage props in rock music.

But with rap, it was always just an empty stage with a different guy every few minutes; there was no visual vibe or world to help connect with each artist, so I decided since I’m not holding a guitar or setting up amps, I can build a little world up there, with giant shotguns, chainsaws, something to turn the stage into my world for my 15 - 30 min set time. Things people will remember and be entertained by that help express the music.

When the band got back together, initially I wanted to avoid the reliance on stage gimmicks for the music to stand on its own and our actually playing it to be the star of the show, since most other bands had started faking it with tracks and stuff and using props to distract from the lack of musicianship displayed live.

But I knew in order to not just be some guys onstage we had to have a consistent vibe/look/brand that was more than matching outfits or just our name on a banner.

So we took small elements from the album imagery and incorporated that into our stage setup which we put simple par lights in controlled by sound mode, so that there was always a consistent vibe during our set that we had control over and didn’t leave up to random chance show per show.

I make all the props myself so when fans see them they know they aren’t just store bought Halloween decorations, they’re one of a kind tangible objects from the Descent universe right there in the flesh.

Everything sets up in just a few seconds and only adds to the already crazy show.

A lot of people outside heavy music don’t realise how personal gear choices become. What pieces of your live setup genuinely define the Descent sound on stage?

Yeah gear is a big part of the live sound.

And I don’t mean it has to be the latest and greatest, quite the opposite.

I’ve always played on amps that had good gain without needing a pedal. I tried Crate amps and Peavey and stuff but when I finally got ahold of my Marshall 8100 Valvestate played through a Marshall extra deep bass 4X12 cab I knew I had my sound.

You mentioned the band being somewhat modular right now. Has that instability changed your understanding of what Descent actually is at its core?

Ok yeah so this is the part where everyone turns on me after I just emphasized the importance of Descent being as live as possible and how using fake tracks live is bullshit.

Ok so about a year into our reforming after the long hiatus, our drummer Brian informed us he wasn’t looking to be doing this live full time anymore, but he had no issues recording drum parts etc. So we started looking for another drummer to pick up the torch.

We got lucky on our first try by linking up with Graham Abernathy, the drummer of the band Kudu at the time, now he’s in Mortal Void, and he nailed the songs right out the gate. That lasted about 6 months or so until the pressures of both bands became too much for his schedule at the time so he respectfully stepped away from Descent, leaving us drummerless with a few shows still on the books coming up fast.

Well rather than cancel, we took the gamble of just playing along to the drum tracks from the record, which we practice to during rehearsals anyways so it was like bringing the practice setup to the stage. It turns out everything sounded great and no one seemed to really even care we didn’t have a live drummer, which was the beginning of the end for our live band situation.

About a month later Jamie our bass player had to step away due to his school and life’s financial burdens, and then Dylan eventually realized he didn’t have time to be as committed as he needed to be, so he had to step away. This all kinda happened in the short span of a couple months.

So there I was, the only member left and we still had one more show booked, the Deep Ellum art fest. Because it was sort of an eclectic artsy showcase kinda festival, I didn’t feel the pressure I would have it being a regular metal show, so I decided to just do the show by myself and see how it went.

It could either be a nightmare or it could be nightmare less, but I didn’t even consider it would be a resounding success!! Everyone who passed by the stage area stopped and watched until the crowd was pretty big!

So let me break down my “tracks” setup so I can redeem my initial stance on fake or programmed bands.

Ok, I’m not just handing the sound guy a headphone cable with my stereo ready mp3 song on it setup karaoke style for me to play along and sing over.

I approached it like this — wherever there was a band member, that would be a track. Nothing extra, not a bunch of filler. If there was a guy there, it’s now a track. And I didn’t premix anything or program anything.

The drums were on their own track, the bass guitar was made up of the bass tracks from the records, which were all played by a person not programmed, so the sound engineer still had separate control over the drums and the bass in his live mix, just as if he were mixing real players.

Then I recorded the second guitar parts for the whole show in one take, to make sure it felt more live so any noises or mistakes I just kept in there, and I run that recording through a re-amp box to allow me to plug it directly into a Peavey Revolution full stack on stage left, that is then mic’d up by the sound guy, and I run my guitar through my normal Marshall and sing all the vocals just as I would if the whole band was there; no vocal track.

So only 3 separate tracks, all played by a human and all run just as they would be run live. So onstage there’s still 2 full stacks with live loud guitars and monitors are cranked up even louder because I don’t use in-ears or a click track to play along with the tracks. The drums are my click track just as they would be with a real drummer.

I have the show already laid out as one long file, so there’s no running over and pressing play between songs. It runs as smooth as if the drummer was starting the tracks behind the scenes.

So now that I’ve broken down how the tracks are run, the band becomes modular because if one of the guys decides to play any of the shows coming up, I just have to mute only that track and boom, now the real player plays that part.

So no matter what, you’re getting guitar and vocals in real time from myself, and only 3 other parts played by humans but recorded.

The main reason I decided to do this as a one man band thing was to make sure we didn’t lose momentum while taking a break looking for new members. This way Descent fans still got to hear the members from the record playing their parts and we didn’t have to deal with inconsistent faces and performance quality from show to show while on the hunt for permanent players.

And the Dallas metal scene has a serious drummer drought, so who knew when we’d ever find a new drummer and didn’t want to pick from the ones who were turned free agents by every other band needing a drummer. We didn’t put any ads out because we aren’t trying to put ourselves in the “incomplete or unstable” band category to the public, we wanted to remain solid and ready as far as booking shows and continuing forward.

I am on the side of hope that the right members will find us organically, especially after seeing that I’m by myself up there, I always get the questions, hey do you need a drummer or bassist, etc. That’s when I can see how well they may fit or how serious they really are and go from there.

So the plan is to do this only until we are complete again, without having to waste all this effort rebooting the band after all those years.

So yes I play by myself to tracks, but every track is a human performance and only what a band member played live, no extra magic or filler; so it’s as live as tracks can ever be played.

I’d rather keep chugging away bringing real fucking metal to the fans than disappear defeated by schedules and laziness.

If someone walked into a Descent show without hearing the music beforehand, what would you want to hit them first, the sound, the atmosphere, or the sense that everything happening in front of them is completely real?

The atmosphere for sure.

They need to know immediately that this is a Descent set and it’s going to be raw chaos sonically and visually every time. They should be able to tell by the look of the stage and the sound of the music what band is onstage no matter how many people or who is actually up there because it’s not about who’s on stage or the perfect tone or who gets the spotlight; it’s about the fans unleashing their pent up energy and having a good fun reason to let loose some stress and get lost in the metal.

No guesswork, no tricks, no bullshit, just loud ass metal, skulls, bones, strobes, and sweat.

From the first note to the last, if you didn’t have fun at a Descent show, it’s because you didn’t want to!!

We just try to bring a consistent intensity and energy no matter how you hear it, in your car, in your headphones, or at the show, you’re hearing human music played by human musicians for human fans.