Quiet River - Blackened Progressive Metal

Here's Luke Vincent von Paraz from Italy and I am the mastermind of the solo-project Quiet River.

The story behind this creature is quite strange: it all started from my early passion for NWOTHM sound, specifically in the Iron Maiden's signature style, and the parallel fascination for extreme Metal, with a slight preference for Black Metal.

From this basic idea, dated back in the late Nineties days, things evolved in a more defined entity in October 2022, when I founded my solo project Quiet River, in order to make a convergence between classic british Heavy Metal, mostly in an Iron Maiden fashion, and screaming and harsh Black Metal vocals.

I write all the musical scores for all the instrumentations via Digital Audio Workstation, working in a Piano Roll graphic interface and midi communication protocol: something very, very far from the usual Metal or Rock band approach, and even different from the one-man band template.

In other words: I can't play any physical or real instrument, but I'm able, using music theory, math and plain geometry, to trace in a music sheet what my intuition brings to my consciousness: kinda crazy, don't you think? 

From late 2022 to late 2023 I produced a bunch of songs, recorded in a professional studio with the precious help of the best session musicians available, as their task was to play exactly, in a 1:1 correlation, what I wrote in every single detail.

Starting from the end of 2023 and following all 2024 I then decided to realize what was my real goal and the ultimate expression of my creative will: a one-track single-suite album where all my influences finally find their space in a cohesive singularity, a blending of british Heavy Metal, european epic Power Metal, swedish and hellenic Black Metal, unusual references to Sepultura (oddly enough, I know!) or even Technical Death Metal, all packed in a complex narrative landscape inherited from Seventies Prog Rock sensibility.

With the same working method and all the same session musicians of the previous efforts, plus some additions, I entered the recording studio again and finally produced and published, in December 2024, the 42':42'' - 42 riffs featuring suite "The Hero's Journey".

This single-track-album could be seen as the definitive expression of my path as a composer and even as a person, indeed, and all the previous songs and their appearances through these last years are to be intended as "demo" material. 

I would be very honored if my work finds a place in ProgArchives, so here's my suggestion and submission to your attention.

Links:

At the moment, this release is only available in digital format for streaming or purchasing, and there are actually no plans to print physical media such as CDs or tapes.

Kindest regards from Italy,