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Fate, Wine, & Wisteria

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Fate, Wine, & Wisteria is the third album by October Noir, released on September 22, 2021. This is the band's first album with four members each playing the instrument. Like their previous two albums, the songs on this album have gothic metal/rock and doom metal rhythms and riffs flavored with variety of atmospheres and tones produced by keyboards.

The two singles released from this album were "Windows" (released August 22, 2021) and "Reverence (Make You Love)" (released July 21, 2023); both of these singles also came with music video.

Background, production, & release[]

The first mention of Fate, Wine, & Wisteria as the title of the third album came on November 13, 2020 with the photo of a guy wearing that shirt on the official band Facebook page. Unlike their previous two albums and their next album, in which all of the writing and production of this album took place in Tom Noir's residence, this album was recorded at Wicked Wind Studios in Chicago, Illinois with Paul Bento overseeing production, who also engineered Type O Negative albums. All of the writing and some of the recording was done at Tom's residence. It has the returning member Danny Stickz who plays drums, and the first with newcomers Doug Lane who plays guitar and Justin Thompson who plays keyboards. They began making the album in fall of 2020, first by writing the lyrics and musical notes, then tuning and playing the instruments. After songs were done, Wicked Wind Music mixed and mastered them and production was completed in summer 2021. While putting finishing touches on the album, Justin Thompson left the band for personal reasons in late June. Fate, Wine, & Wisteria was released on September 22, 2021 (first day of autumn), meaning this is the first October Noir album to come out in a month other than October. For comparison sake, their first album came out on October 19, 2017, and their second album came out on October 1, 2019.

According to Tom in an interview, the making of this album was the most challenging so far in their career and needed the most production time, funding, and depth. The hardest to work on was transition to ensure smooth ride to the next piece within the songs, while trying to make the sounds as mainstream as they planned. They spent time on shaping songs by trimming pieces out while others get rewritten and reinserted pieces to the compositions.

Album contents[]

Title[]

When he started writing the album, Tom was having relationship issues with Elizabeth K L King, which gave meaning to the first word of the album title, Fate, and him frequently drinking red wine, which gave the second word, Wine, and him looking to move on with long life to go like ever-climbing vine and taking advantage that love is immortal, which gave the third word in the title, Wisteria. Each of the these three words in the title of the album has the respective symbolic meaning. Fate represents the goddess that determines human destiny, that is life, so Fate symbolizes "life". Wine represents the frequent drink usually when being with women, so Wine symbolizes "women". And Wisteria is a flower that symbolizes "love" as well as power, wisdom, long life and immortality. Type O Negative song "These Three Things" influenced his idea to feature three words in the title of the third album.

Cover art[]

FW&W unedited

Self-portrait of Adrianna Eve that is used for the album cover

It is the first October Noir album whose cover is a photograph, rather than digital art as portrayed in the first two albums, as they find it easier to do photograph, which was sent by someone per request. The album cover for FW&W shows a real lady named Adrianna Eve sitting in her bedroom holding a glass of wine, and the scattered bones and skulls are those she collected in nature represent the eventual fate of their lives. The pillars with lights on top of them are lit candles sitting on the holder seen below it. When glanced at it, the candle set is tellingly well in front of the display board to the back, where treasures on them can be seen behind the candlesticks, most prominently behind the middle stick. The finished art is more blurred than the original self-portrait by Eve, which clearly shows her sitting on a bed and the table where candles sit on is clearly visible. The bare indoor tree featured was unintentionally blended with the branched background on ON text logo.

Musical style and lyrics[]

The music on this album takes a slightly different turn from their previous two albums. This album was made entirely on their own, meaning this album doesn't have as much Type O Negative-like sounds as in their first two albums. Thus the sound of music on FW&W is more mainstream than their first two. To make the sound mainstream, he looked to popular bands like Def Leppard, Bush, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Misfits, the Goosebumps theme song, The Cure, The Sisters of Mercy, The Doors, Paradise Lost, and My Dying Bride to influence his songwriting. Like the first two albums, the main genres for this one are gothic metal, gothic rock, and doom metal, although this album contains influences of additional genres such as sludge metal, punk, shoegaze, alternative rock, progressive metal, psychedelic rock, and experimental. In addition, in the band's interview with Alex Haber of Happy New York around the release of the next album Letters to Existence, Doug Lane said that this album has a lot of Opeth and baroque influences. Due to the all own-crafted composition, many call the album less Type O Negative and more October Noir.

The songs on this album contains lyrics that cover mainly about lust, loss, love, pain and arrogance over most of its tracks. Few of its tracks have unique lyrical themes, such as about the god in one, Adam & Eve in another, philosophy talk in another, and cultural and societal issues in one.

Songs[]

There are thirteen songs on this album–ten full-length songs and three brief interludes. The album has three chapters, each are started with brief interludes, all instrumentals, under the same name, starting with "Fate" that starts the Fate Chapter that lasts for four tracks along with "Windows", "Reverence (Make You Love)", and "Effigy". "Windows" and "Reverence" were both released as singles tagged with music videos on August 22, 2021 and July 21, 2023, respectively. "Effigy" is another one with music video that is about the friends getting stabbed to death by masked men while camping on Halloween night. "Effigy" sounds very much like Misfits, though not a cover.

The second chapter of the album—Wine Chapter—is started with another interlude, "Wine", then the next four tracks. "Persephone" is a mythological-themed track that references the Greek goddess Persephone. "Serendipity" has spacey tones in the first half followed by continuous organ in the second half, and the lyrics is philosophical. "Wanderlust" contains a section that is carved out of the musical The Wedding Singer, and is about losing the desire to go out and about due to pain he experienced. "Cradle the Monster" is a song that references the cancel culture, about mobbing into guarded places like Frankenstein or Dracula's Castle while killing pedophiles.

"Wisteria" is another interlude, but this one features nature sounds, which marks the beginning of the final chapter of the album—Wisteria Chapter. "Wisteria" was played as the outro part on "The Veil" on the previous album, before it was omitted in the cutback version in an effort to fit every track on the Thirteen CD. "Sistinas" is a Danzig cover that sounds very much like Danzig. "Proverbs" is about Adam & Eve; its middle section features the use of the Chinese string instrument called guzheng. "Goodbye Black Bird" is the final and longest track of the album.

Tracklist[]

  1. "Fate" (instrumental; Fate Chapter begins) – 0:49
  2. "Windows" (released as single) – 6:48
    • I. "Windows" – 2:24 (0:00–2:24)
    • II. "Beckoned Call" – 1:31 (2:24–3:55)
    • III. "Forever" – 1:49 (3:55–5:44)
    • IV. "Windows (reprise)" – 1:04 (5:44–6:48)
  3. "Reverence (Make You Love)" (released as single) – 6:40
  4. "Effigy" – 5:41
  5. "Wine" (instrumental; Wine Chapter begins) – 0:59
  6. "Persephone" – 6:53
  7. "Serendipity" (alt. titled "The Universe") – 6:36
    • I. "The Universe" – 3:14 (0:00–3:14)
    • II. "All Existence" – 2:04 (3:14–5:18)
    • III. "Pyre" – 1:18 (5:18–6:36)
  8. "Wanderlust" – 7:25
    • I. "Wanderlust" – 5:00 (0:00–5:00)
    • II. "Infatuation" – 2:25 (5:00–7:25)
  9. "Cradle the Monster" – 6:09
  10. "Wisteria" (instrumental; Wisteria Chapter begins) – 0:50
  11. "Sistinas" (alt. titled "Deep Inside"; Danzig cover) – 5:44
  12. "Proverbs" (features a guzheng) – 6:58
    • I. "Original Sin" – 2:46 (0:00–2:46)
    • II. "Disobedience" – 1:36 (2:46–4:22)
    • III. "Forbidden Fruit" – 2:36 (4:22–6:58)
  13. "Goodbye Black Bird" – 9:07
    • I. "Goodbye Black Bird" – 4:46 (0:00–4:46)
    • II. "All Is Undone" – 1:04 (4:46–5:50)
    • III. "Goodbye Black Bird (reprise)" – 3:17 (5:50–9:07)

Length[]

Fate, Wine, & Wisteria lasts 70 minutes and 45 seconds, similar to their debut album The Haunting and the Powerful (69 minutes) but significantly shorter than their second album Thirteen (86 minutes and 38 seconds on the full version, 79 minutes and 36 seconds on the cutback version). The lengths of the tracks are very consistent on this album, with nine out of thirteen songs lasting between 5:40 to 7:25, five of those lasting between 6:35 to 7:00. There are three songs on this album lasting less than a minute, all are ambient interludes titled from each of three component words in the album title. No other songs by October Noir prior to this album's release last less than four minutes. This is also the first ON album where the longest song doesn't exceed ten minutes long.

Reviews and interviews[]

Reviews

Interviews

Personnel[]

Guest/session musicians

  • Brian Kohl – guitar, writing on "Effigy"
  • Paul Bento – guitar on "Cradle the Monster" | production
  • Wicked Wind Music – engineering, mixing, mastering, production
October Noir albums
The Haunting and the Powerful · Thirteen · Fate, Wine, & Wisteria · Letters to Existence
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