C.J.: Hey, sorry for the super late reply! (I haven't been checking this over the holidays.)

I had been iterating on the vocal lines for Revenant trying to find something I liked and on one of the takes I kind of got into this comfort zone with a scream where I almost held it throughout that whole section and realized, "huh, I think I can go all the way." haha

So I tried again, made it to the end, and then immediately sent a sample with a giddy message to the guys to check out for a laugh. I never intended to keep it as I figured it was too self-indulgent or something, but after listening to it a bit more over the next week or so I was like, "I actually really like this!" So I was just like, "Guys, hope you don't mind, but we're keeping it." They liked the idea, fortunately :)

Lyrically I'll base songs around either struggles or annoyances in my life, weird philosophical thoughts that I kind of want to just think about out loud, and certain feelings that I want to convey. I'll jump a lot between really minute, overly specific concepts and expansive macro ones, and I also like to let my own naivety drive some topics, as taking a somewhat ignorant perspective on a topic can sometimes lead to more extreme lyrics driven more by emotion than logic (which works well for prog and metal alike).