Hey all; Matthew here!

Just wanted to start off really quickly by saying thank you to those of you who have kept SBtS alive and in your playlists over the last few years! It means more to me than you know. I know it’s been quite some time since there’s been meaningful activity in the SBtS world; real world challenges and life happens sometimes…but also as many of you know I’ve been swamped with numerous other projects over the years as well.

But at long last, the wait is over…and the recording of a new album is in the final stages. While I don’t have an exact release date yet, I can safely say it’ll be late August or early September.

The new album is titled The Road To Oblivion, and I’m incredibly stoked to enter a new chapter for Silence Before the Storm.

(Album art is by yours truly; it’s a photograph of storm clouds over my home in Albany County, Wyoming that ended up being a perfect fit for the mood and the message of the album.)

Tracklisting:

1 - Graveyard of One

2 - The Evolution of Hate

3 - A Dying World

4 - Terrified of Myself

5 - Oblivion

6 - Narcissist

7 - Knee Deep

8 - Do Not Give In

9 - Hope [Instrumental]

I’ll have a specific release date within the next couple of weeks as I wrap this thing up!

A few other notes:

Some of you may have noticed that SBtS material is no longer on Bandcamp. Some of you may have also noticed that both my personal profiles and all of my bands’ profiles have disappeared. I first explained both of these things in a post on Breath of Sindragosa’s Ampwall blog a short bit ago, so I’ll just [mostly] copy/paste from there:

“This is by design and is also the case with all of my other projects. Bandcamp as an entity has very quickly fallen to enshittification, particularly on the backend, and is no longer the entity it once was. After multiple buyouts, several rounds of layoffs, union-busting, a number of artist-unfriendly backend changes, a forced switch to a different merchant processor, and a continued decline in artist-platform relations/communication, customer service, dev communication, etc…I chose to no longer support the platform. I, along with a number of other independent artists, have found an absolutely outstanding home here on Ampwall…which will continue to be the primary place to purchase original, lossless audio files. (All of my music will also still be available on every major streaming platform.)

Secondly, some of you may have noticed my absence from social media, both personally and with any of my projects. This, too, is by design. I’ll be honest...I just can’t do it anymore. 90% of social media is just mis/disinformation, ragebait and engagement bait, bots, bad actors, etc. The algorithms are fucked. Genuine user engagement has tanked…pushing bands, artists, etc. further towards paying for expensive and inefficient advertisement with a rapidly declining ROI just to get their material noticed. I refuse to play the game and at this point in my life and career, I just don’t fucking care. I don’t even want to look at the shit anymore; it’s just a chore.

I’m not out to make it big. I’m fine staying strictly underground. I make music for myself first and foremost. If folks already know and dig my stuff, that’s great. If folks happen to come across me via algorithms or suggestions or whatever else, that’s also great. But it’s an exercise in futility and a detriment to my mental health to engage on most social media anymore. So I’ve bailed from Insta, Bluesky, and Facebook. I never got into Tik Tok or Twitter, fortunately. I did take another extended break from Reddit; although I’ve recently come back for a few reasons, I try to keep my engagement there to a minimum and that’s pretty much the only platform I engage on anymore. Ampwall (and the Ampwall Discord server) will continue to be the primary spot for news and updates on any of my projects going forward, though I may post some stuff here or there on Reddit.”

Anyway, thanks to anyone who read through all that, and special thanks to everyone who has stuck around since the project first formed in 2019…and has watched the project develop and progress through the years into something awesome! I can’t wait to share new material with y’all, and as soon as the album is 100% done I’ll drop some new tunes with y’all here on Ampwall and over on the Youtube channel…along with a firm release date.

Cheers!

-Matthew “Axl” Brammer

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