Needless Cane has been creating music with a variety of different band members since the early 2000's and joined forces with Jeremy Garner in 2017 to form their debut collaborative album:
"Sick World".

Prior to this album, Jeremy had been their guitarist throughout 2007 while still in New Zealand, and then ten years later the duo reconnected over the internet to produce a full album together. From darker conceptual metal songs such as "Pale Fire (And the Corpse of Love)" and the title track "Sick World" to slower dreamy gothic songs with dark narrations like "Goddess of the Black Moon", to the more melodic, emotional, and acoustic songs such as "Identity Crisis", this album has a great variety of creative genres and styles throughout it, for the listener to explore.

Their follow up album "The Red Masquerade" was released in 2020, as a 70 minute experience, taking their creative collaboration to a whole new level, exploring themes related to the red death, phantoms, theaters, masks, demons, ghosts, dark magic, the occult, flames, and bottomless pits.

This album reminds a fast paced generation of the importance of listening to music as a complete entity - not unlike experiencing a good film or a theater performance. The album itself is split into three main acts with a beginning, middle and end, which explore immersive soundscapes, guitar solos, synths, electronics, beautiful classical pianos, heavy metal rock music, haunted tunes, screaming and melodic vocals, spoken voice samples, and countless different emotions intensely expressed through a full experience of madness, beauty, depravity, and deep revelation.

The album begins with dark synths and rhythms, setting the tone with "Who Killed The Phantom?" which immediately sweeps one into a land of mystery; an invocation to the creatures of the night. There is a particularly eerie feeling that can be felt in this song, especially considering the actor of "The Phantom of the Opera" was found dead at Central Park, the day after this song was created.

Following this, the listener is swept into heavy metal riffs and solos with screaming vocals/chants in "The Mask of Cain" before moving further through a collection of songs best left to be experienced.

Directly in the middle of this 11-song concept album, is the title track "The Red Masquerade" which is a near 8 minute song of masquerade-like waltz music with classical influences and playful pianos and strings that encourage all manner of phantoms, ghosts and ghouls to dance and swirl to the melodies, while the listener is drawn even deeper into a world of madness and frenzy.

The album then travels into much darker and more nightmarish territories such as can be heard in "Baudelaire's Nightmare" which is a somewhat darker version of the children's "Three Little Pigs" story with a combination of themes merging throughout. The song itself goes for 9 mins and 30 sec, but is in itself a continuation from the previous song "Chaos Star" which is also close to 9 mins, and in fact there is not a single song on the whole album that is less than 5 minutes long.

As has been described, every song is its own deep and individual experience, but is also connected to the greater whole and story being woven from the beginning to the end of this conceptual piece.

The nightmarish song described above contains heavy knocking sounds from the big bad wolf as he attempts to break in, as well as horror chainsaws and other means to get through. The song seems to tell a story of the wolf finally getting his way even upon being burned in the boiling smoking pot; for he then rises as black smoke from the chimney, poisoning the whole town and surroundings - which seamlessly leads into the beautiful and melodic piano rock opera song: "Fire At The Theatre". This serves as the closing chapter of the album, though not before submerging the listener into a final 3D sound exploration of the terrifyingly indescribable "Bottomless Pit of Creeping Crawlers".

Well worth a listen, the full album experience can be streamed or downloaded online right below: "THE RED MASQUERADE".

The previous album from 2017 can be heard here:
"SICK WORLD".

You can also read a transcription Interview With Needless Cane on the album "Sick World" here.

Or watch an Interview by Vavara of Needless Cane/Jeremy Garner on "The Red Masquerade here.

To find out more about Needless Cane and to stay up to date on information and details regarding any forthcoming music, videos, and so on, you can follow their band page on social media here:
NEEDLESS CANE

Listen to Needless Cane on all major streaming services!

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