EPK – Lost To The Void – Embrace in Disgust (2023)

EPK – Lost To The Void – Embrace in Disgust (2023)

Publicist – Jon Asher – jon[@]ashermediarelations[.]com

“This album means so much to us as a band.  It is quite literally a collection of so much pain and tragedy intertwined with the reality that has this visceral feeling that in a lot of ways is hard for some of us to listen to. The loss and suffering endured to bring this album to completion was not worth it but regardless it’s there now for everyone to hear and feel.  We just hope you all enjoy it as much as we do and most importantly hope that Colin is proud and somehow able to listen to this thing, we worked on for over 3 years. One thing that really hurts is he was never able to sit down and listen to this final product with us. Hope it came out just the way you wanted brother. FOR COLIN, FOR EVIL, FOREVER.” – Lost To The Void

For fans of Whitechapel, The Faceless, Organectomy, Beneath the Massacre, Despised Icon

Losttothevoid.com | Facebook.com/LosttotheVoid | Twitter.com/LosttotheVoid

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Losttothevoid.bandcamp.com | Spotify | Apple Music

Album: Embrace in Disgust
Release Date: September 1, 2023
Label: Self-Release
Distribution: Blood Blast Distribution

Track Listing:
1. Humanity Decays – 0:52
2. Malevolent – 3:53
3. Idyllic Dissension – 3:06
4. Poppy Place – 2:50
5. The Mirror – 3:52
6. Deadweight – 6:28
7. On the Fence – 2:07
8. Millimeter from Murder 3:48
9. Jaded – 4:38
10 A Welcomed Plague – 5:42
11. Sally – 11:04
12. Capital Punishment – 4:09
13. Embrace – 2:17
14. In Disgust 9:15
Album Length: 1:04:06

Album Recording Credits:
• All songs performed by: Lost to the Void
• All songs written by: Lost to the Void
• Produced by: Andrew Llewellyn and Paul Madrid of Angler Audio
• Mixed by: Andrew Llewellyn and Paul Madrid of Angler Audio
• Mastered by: Phil Pluskota of Sonic Assault Studios
• Album Artwork by: Andrew Llewellyn

Album Band Line Up:
Ivan Aguayo – Drums
Casey Gerlach – Vocals
Colin Gerlach – Guitar
Drew Llewellyn – Guitar
Paul Madrid – Bass

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The album as a whole (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY)

We always aim to have the album flow for those who still like to listen to albums in their entirety. As far as lyrics go I chose different subjects that I think our contributing to our species and planets demise.

Track by track (LYRICALLY & MUSICALLY)

Humanity Decays is not really a song but an intro to set an ominous tone for the album

Malevolent was an obvious opening track. It just had that feel of being socked in the fucking mouth right from the get-go, which you need as an opener for any Metal/Core album. We wrote it as a band rather than having a song that was already written so it is very collaborative.  There’s even a riff that was basically written by passing the guitar back and forth between myself and Drew. We do this thing where we have each member lead at least one song per release.  It allows everybody to feel their input and direction is heard.  This song was led by our bassist Paul.  What is really cool is that when writing the vocals, we had the idea of letting Paul write the vocal patterns for the most part.  For 90% of our songs, I write the patterns before the lyrics because I look at metal vocals as a percussive instrument. While I am very proud of my lyrics, I know some may be hard to decipher and some people don’t care what’s being said.  At the end of the day, it needs to hit sonically with the music. So, Paul and I met up one night and just screamed over the pre-pro and made noises.  I then wrote lyrics to match those with some changes obviously.  Lyrically the song serves almost as an opening paragraph to the essay that is our album. Basically, it is about how the human race is just engrained in violence all over the planet and not really the benevolent species we project.

Idyllic Dissension was the first song our guitarist Drew brought to the band, because he had limited writing on the debut EP, we wanted the first single to be something he wrote.  When he pitched it to the band it was nearly perfect.  It was fresh but sounded enough like our older material to not push fans away, while also being a very digestible track that flowed like a single would. With the pandemic shutting everything down and ruining all our tour plans for our EP in 2020 we decided to begin writing the follow-up immediately. It’s about the ugly side that so many showed during the pandemic with constant finger-pointing rather than trying to solve the issues at hand.

Poppy Place is a song about being stuck in an environment that will not allow you to heal while losing all emotion and becoming a numb empty vessel. The title was taken from an actual spot that Drew and Paul lived at during a rough patch of their lives.  I’m pretty sure most people could relate to feeling stuck and unable to get back to a healthy state of mind at some point in their life.  Drew and Paul had originally written this song for their old band Lechuza and when originally pitched I liked it but when brought up as a single I initially didn’t hear it. Boy, let me tell you how wrong I was. It’s definitely in my top three songs of the record maybe even number one.  When I wrote the lyrics for it, I was coming back from an amazing out-of-town weekend. I felt clear-headed but something about returning to being confined to my place in the lockdown made the creative faucet start flowing. A lot of times you get writer’s block so when moments like that arise you have to capitalize. Lyrically I am very proud of these because they came so organically and literally felt like I nailed exactly what I wanted to say about detaching emotionally. Not to mention it is one of the few songs with singing. I wanted an almost gothic-type feel that was catchy yet still very dark sounding.  I don’t write singing parts just to have them I usually hear a melody in my head over the music when it’s instrumental than write lyrics.  This was a rare scenario that when first vocalizing the melody I came up with the words on the spot. I usually just say random words and weirdly enough I just came out with “I’ve been gone for far too long.” and then thought I needed to write that down and next came “To ever find my way out of this place.” Simple but effective.

The Mirror is a really cool send-off to our former keyboardist James.  He left the band at the end of 2020 as we had wrapped up writing the album, but this was the song he led.  He wrote the main theme which we built off of, arranged certain things including the solo, and even wrote the majority of the lyrics for it.  He chose the topic of vanity and I quickly thought of the name the Mirror like a vanity mirror.  It dives into the inability of many to be able to self-reflect and grow.  To improve oneself you have to look in the mirror and see your flaws before you try to change them.  Are you stuck glaring in the mirror of a positive projection created in your mind or can you see through the cracks?

Deadweight will hold a special place in all our hearts.  It was led by our late guitarist and my older brother and best friend.  When we finished writing this song despite it being longer than a usual single, we knew it had to be one. In my opinion, it has the heaviest part we’ve ever written and the most aggressive feel. It is about letting go of those that serve no purpose for you anymore except weighing you down. Often when someone who was once a good friend betrays you want to beat them or even kill them.  This is about being torn between moving on or seeking vengeance.  I won’t go into detail but the fact the lyrics were written before Colin passed is very eerie. This is also the only song that Colin actually recorded the solo. It was taken from a live set of the last show we played with him and the last time any of us saw him alive. In other songs, I had to recreate what Colin was doing. We also shot a memorial video for it in his birthday month at the venue he used to bar tend at which was released one year after his passing. .

On the Fence is an interlude that starts with a clean variation of the main theme of Deadweight that Colin wrote but we could not fit in the song.

Millimeter from Murder was led by our Drummer Ivan.  Pretty straightforward heavy song.  We love our technical side but every once in a while, you need a simple ass beater.  This song is kind of an extension of Deadweight where retribution is chosen over letting go. The cool thing with this song is while we often build up to a breakdown or slam, this song we close it with a fast part that breaks apart into absolute chaos.

Jaded is a very collaborative effort between Paul, Drew, and Colin.  I wouldn’t really call anyone a lead in this one as they all kind of handled their respective sections. The topic is about mental illness going untreated and how eventually it can lead to choosing death over life.  I always joke about how I prophesize things as topics I wrote about almost seemed to come to fruition.  There’s a line that’s repeated in the song “I just fucking want to die so I can finally get some mother fucking sleep at night” that gives chills down my spine to how accurately it depicted something that had yet to happen. In 2021 I had some severe neck problems that caused some horrible nerve damage. It was the most excruciating physical pain I ever dealt with and was keeping me up for multiple days in a row. If you’ve never been severely sleep-deprived it will make you go insane.  There was a point when I thought about jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge it got so bad.

A Welcomed Plague was written unlike any other on this album. Early on in the writing process, we did a thing I like to call riff dumps. It’s where we record stand-alone riffs that can be taken for any song.  I unloaded my arsenal as did my brother, which some riffs will be used in the future. It is awesome that Colin will always be a part of our actual music going forward.  In this song Drew literally grabbed a riff or two of mine, wrote a riff or two of his own, and the rest were riffs recorded by my brother.  So basically, the song was led by Colin but composed by Drew. The topic is about how the human race is a parasitic disease on this planet and that the only way for the Earth to thrive is for us to perish. Another one of those things that we kind of joked about that we brought on the pandemic. Please forgive us.

Sally is very special to me. For one the topic was created before the band was conceived and two it is about as close to a ballad as you will see us get.  We also wrote this song with an organized song structure, which we have never done before. It starts off as an almost gothic, atmospheric, and melodic rock song.  As the song builds so does the tension and the heaviness.  It is supposed to go in line with the sanity of the antagonist losing his control. On our way to one of the very first Lost to the Void practices, I pitched this topic about a serial killer who is never satisfied with his partners and eventually kills and takes his favorite part of them to combine and build his perfect woman. Colin had the idea to have this weird electronic element over it and I said I wanted the title to be a woman’s name and Paul came up with Sally as an homage to Nightmare Before Christmas.  The cool thing about the lyrics is that it can be taken as a physically putting a perfect partner together or it can be taken as an abuser building their perfect person’s personality to be perfect for them.

Capital Punishment: We wanted to make sure the next song followed Sally to fit in the story of this album and make it clear the abusers will not have a happy ending. This song is a call to put all sexual abusers down like the sick animals they are. One of the other members wrote the bulk lyrics for this song.  I remember I had them send me the lyrics before I boarded a flight where I actually wrote lyrics for multiple other songs.  This was a rare instance where we had the lyrics written before the patterns.  It just so happened I was able to use virtually every lyric they had sent me which was not their intent. They thought I’d whittle it down, but I actually just added to it.  The song kind of came out as a rap metal song of sorts.

Embrace: This along with the song that follows was written over 10 years ago for my old band Behold the Desecration.  I am glad I was able to hang onto this one as I always envisioned Embrace in Disgust as the title of the album with this concept and thought it would be cool to split the title track and call the acoustic song Embrace and the follow-up In Disgust. Lyrically it serves almost as the protagonist is reflecting and seeing he too has become a monster as a means of survival in this current state of the world.

In Disgust:  Well we are finally at the end. Much like Malevolent served as an opening paragraph this is the closing statement.  Your hero now realizes that while still trying to fight the good fight he has become desensitized to his opposition and tries to unite those that also stand in the way. This is the only song where I recorded the guitars besides Embrace.

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BAND STORY ANGLES / FUN FACTS:

1. This album was recorded and mixed by our guitarist Drew and bassist Paul

2. The entire band, aside from Ivan, have known each other or known of each other since high school including our former members.  

3. At the inception of the band originally Casey was supposed to be the vocalist, Colin and Mike as the guitarists, Paul on bass, with a keyboardist and drummer. Mike was moving to the San Luis Obispo area and had to bow out in the infant stages of the band which moved Casey to guitar and finding another vocalist.  For the first year or so the lineup stayed the same.  Eventually, our original vocalist did not have the time we needed so we recruited Drew for guitar and Casey switched to vocals.  After releasing our debut EP “Necrotic Ideology” and playing 3 amazing shows, the pandemic shut everything down which pushed us to write this record.  Our keyboardist James opted to leave before recording the keys but as a band, we wanted to keep that element so we wrote the keys ourselves and decided to go on as a five-piece switching to click tracks and backtracks for the keys.  After Colin passed the only guitarist, we felt would fit with us stylistically and personally was Mike. Luckily he had been settled into his area for some time at this point and he accepted the offer.

California has an inhuman and ruthless heresy that bloodthirsts for the unholy callous dissonance and barbarous brutality of which we have unseen, Lost To The Void has a mission of remorselessness and an intentional tenacity to diversify Death Metal. Featuring current and previous members of Saponification, Behold the Desecration, and Lechuza, they collaborate on an undeniable merciless sound that coalesces into beautiful mayhem. Needless to say, there’s no scarcity of talent. They easily exemplify technical blistering riffs that integrate with uncivilized heavy-hitting breakdowns and alleviate with melodies, this unformulated conclave is here to expel and annihilate.

Album Band Line Up:
Ivan Aguayo – Drums
Casey Gerlach – Vocals
Colin Gerlach – Guitar
Drew Llewellyn – Guitar
Paul Madrid – Bass

Live Band Line Up:
Ivan Aguayo – Drums
Casey Gerlach – Vocals
Mike Jones – Guitar
Drew Llewellyn – Guitar
Paul Madrid – Bass

Discography:
2023 – Embrace in Disgust
2019- Necrotic Ideology

Shared Stage with:
Ingested, Devourment, Extermination Dismemberment, Organectomy, The Faceless, Within Destruction, Moria, Archspire, Entheos, Inferi, Vulvodynia, Vale of Pnath, Gorod, Lorna Shore, Enterprise Earth, Body Snatcher, Alterbeast, Continuum, Pound, Spite, Arsis, Internal Bleeding, Pyrexia, The Zenith Passage, Within the Ruins, Aversions Crown, Currents, GrindMother, Wolf King, Waste Walker, Cyborg Octopus, Hatriot, Embryonic Devourment, Steaksauce Mustache, The Kennedy Veil

Tours and Festivals:
2022- Spring Meltdown- South Lake Tahoe, CA
2021- Titan Fest- Sacramento, CA
2020- Brian Shield’s Memorial show- Cupertino, CA
2019- Void Fest- Mountain View, CA
2019- Zombie Ball- South Lake Tahoe, CA
2019- Spring Meltdown- South Lake Tahoe, CA
2019- Mother’s Day Metal Fest- Cupertino, CA
2018- Ugly Sweater Fest- South Lake Tahoe, CA
2018- Bay Area Death Fest- Berkeley, CA
2018- Mother’s Day Metal Fest- Cupertino, CA
2018- Spring Meltdown- South Lake Tahoe, CA
2018- Brian Shield’s Memorial show- Cupertino, CA