deathrashed: Upon Stone - Dead Mother Moon (2024)

Information

Artist – Upon Stone

Album – Dead Mother Moon

Label – Century Media Records

Released – January 19th, 2024

Type – Full-length

Genre – Melodic Death Metal

Additional

Notes

Dead Mother Moon is the debut full-length from San Fernando Valley, California quartet Upon Stone, released January 19, 2024 via Century Media Records. The album follows the band's 2021 EP Where Wild Sorrows Grow (Creator Destructor) and constitutes their major-label debut. The recording lineup comprises Xavier Wahlberg (vocals & bass), Ronny Lee Marks (guitars), Gage Goss (guitars), and Wyatt Bentley (drums). Produced and mixed by Taylor Young at The Pit, Van Nuys, California, the album situates itself squarely within early-to-mid 1990s Gothenburg melodic death metal, drawing immediate comparisons to At the Gates, In Flames, and Dissection, with additional metalcore-adjacent weight that recalls early Shadows Fall. Young's production retains a degree of deliberate grit — audible in the raw vocal attack and buzz-saw guitar tone — while maintaining enough definition to service the dual-lead melodic passages and acoustic interludes that recur throughout. Lyrically the album engages esoteric, nature-rooted, and introspective themes: isolation, ritual, and the search for meaning through darkness, in the vein of late-1990s Scandinavian melodeath lyricism rather than gore-oriented death metal convention. "Paradise Failed" features guest vocals from Brian Fair of Shadows Fall. The album's nine tracks run approximately 31 minutes; the closing track, "Dig Up Her Bones" (a Misfits cover), is designated a bonus track on most editions. Dead Mother Moon was issued on CD, black vinyl, and in a 24-bit/48 kHz digital edition. The release received broadly favourable coverage from underground and specialist press including Dead Rhetoric, No Clean Singing, and Punknews.

Videos

- Dead Mother Moon (Music Video)
- Onyx Through The Heart (Music Video)
- Dusk Sang Fairest (Music Video)
- Paradise Failed feat. Brian Fair (Audio Single)
- Live at Turf Club, St. Paul, MN (September 5, 2024)

Recording

Produced and mixed at The Pit, Van Nuys, California, USA.

Tracklist

1. Dead Mother Moon – 03:59 >

Farewell cold queen dressed in white
Buried in Andromeda
The world she gaveth
When life was taken from mine
Forced to weather cosmic storms
Burdened
Blinded sworn to the unknown
And the stars began to turn
Through their shadows cast
So I may only see her
Cold eyes piercing blue
Shine dead mother moon
For her light my own am to extinguish
The reverence and ritual begins again
To the void where I am at one with thee
Frozen skies
Over forests draped in glory
In darkness to rule them all
And in the glare of the crescent
Forever gazing down
Shrouded in penumbral sorrow
Only rays of solstice to eclipse me

In the longest night
The coldest day
I worship
Cold eyes piercing blue
Still I sworn to the unknown
Chosen son of the silent lunar goddess
Shine dead mother moon
From her light my own am to inherit (eternal)
The reverence and ritual begins anew
To the void now I am at one with thee
Frozen skies over embers burning glory
In darkness I rule them all

2. Onyx Through the Heart – 03:36 >

Oh, wretched heart still beating anguished
No flame inside be found, a weathered tomb
And its pillars cold
Black the dagger stabbing, black the river
Where the waters drowneth
Where the waters called me home
I deflect the light of a bastard sun
And its growing shade within me

Consuming and feral, set free
To the night without return
The first and last of my kind once thought lost
I sleep and feel the spirit song surround
As I wake to die

Mourn not the еnd, but the endless
And thе snow-stained Scarlett, drained of soul
For this curse bleed my own everlasting life
Once my reflection pale and mortal
Like portraits faded and torn
Of distant autumn funerals
To the night I must return
The first and last of my kind, a ghost
Called from slumber to rise
Still, a spirit song surrounds me as I beg to die

With onyx through the heart
To the night without return

Mourn not the end
Mourn the endless soul
Freed from this world
I die the fuck alone

3. My Destiny; A Weapon – 03:45 >

Come forth, a wanderer
Through the gates of shadow now behold
To a kingdom burning
Where whispers spoke of a traitor
With a cruel scythe shining no remorse
When facing them alone
Deaths horse riding onward
With a vengeance sworn I harvest
To the begging of their final breaths
Reaping time had time
Cowards, I sacrifice myself unto me
From an ancient primal force
Old curses manifesting storms
I call upon you
So come to life, blind archer now given sight
To lose your dreadful arrows
Night winds, cry my name
In a waking dream
Was a vision of the sky torn open
Of lost horizons, endlessly
With a cruel scythe evermore
To the nameless end, I follow
Cowards, I sacrifice myself unto me

4. Dusk Sang Fairest – 03:11 >

And the breath began to slow
Only sad starts I am left to watch
All the memories I disowned
To be greeted by them once again
Familiar and haunted

So I wait where all rivers run dry
Forced to find no answer
Nor meaning in life

In the absence of faith
When Constellations call
Then fearlessly entered
Through the passing of days
In the light of a soul
So sacred and unfading
Freed to soar ablaze
Towards the heavens, cold
From the wisdom of old
And its secrets to gather
Resurrected by blood-moon and bone
In this death I am certain
We will meet again

For in my dreams, I will return
To the flowing mountain stream
Where the dusk sang fairest
Beside me unseen

5. Paradise Failed – 03:40 >

With their words to serve
Only maladies bound by faith
Kneel before them
To receive a disease pure and failing
Graceless still I am

The holy destination appears before me divine in loss
And their silent abandoned souls now resounding

With my eyes deceived
Damnation befell me
In the flames of twilight, I will drown
As I watch the waves draw closer
Cross the spectral fire
Till the everlasting pain unfolds
And be scarred at last

Reborn
My only destination lies within
On its hollowed ground lay poisoned
Headstones like mazes unknown lost between them
With the names of my enemies, they show
Still unforgiven

[Brain Fair]
With a poem of plagues
New life arisen
Without worth upon the words
By heart, I know them
They reveal to me the way

With my eyes deceived
Damnation
In the flames of twilight, I will drown
As I watch the waves draw closer
Cross the spectral fire
Till the everlasting pain unfolds
And be scarred at last

6. Nocturnalism – 01:17

7. To Seek and Follow the Call of Lions – 04:06 >

Buried gods of war
On evening seas
They speak to me
With the sword of dusk
Morning’s heart was pierced
And of it’s form
A restless spirit feeds upon
Unto the path of wolves
Fearless he wandered

In armor ancient and cold
Sworn and possessed
By he of Thousand Storms

There found no light
But a shadow horned and winged divine

With shades of night
Like first frost of Fimbulwinter

Cleansed in battle
When the air is red with iron
Blood upon stone
With strength of dragon fire
False faith, an immortal offеring
Of the soul now unchained
Through the еcstasy of dying

So came the stillness
A nocturnal age reborn in ash
Rises once more
The essence of conquest
The heir of thorns
And a curse unending

Vow to seek
And follow
The call of lions

On cleansing winds now ascend
To a final hour
Where from it’s peak
I saw the world shadowed

8. The Lantern – 05:17 >

I found the way as the night promised
A path gilded by the dark
Nocturnal pulse guiding,
To be my only compass
On cliffs stabbing through the fog
The last place I remember
From there I bid farewell
To embrace the tides below
From thrones worthy of the gods
To the depths of the mind
Yearning for the netherworlds
The years of shame
Then came not the harvest
Only barrens thorns on twisted trees of fate
I found a wilderness,
Once seen in my dreams of Yore
And with a whisper, it called the name of what came before
Did it die as things must die to grow
Did it guide with the light of the lantern
Glow
I found the way, as the day did promise
Its cunning blinded me to peace
For all to see
Without sight, I saw it for the first time
The beginning as the end becomes one
The cycle now complete
And I will guide with the light of the lantern

9. Dig Up Her Bones (Misfits cover) – 03:01 >

[Verse 1]
Anything is what she is
Anywhere is where she's from
Anything is what she'll be
Anything as long as it's mine
And the door, it opened a way back in
Or is it a way back out?

[Verse 2]
Any place is where she'll be
Any place she'll see you from
Lies and secrets become your world
Anytime, anywhere, she takes me away

[Pre-Chorus]
And death climbs up the steps one by one
To give you the rose that's been burned by her son

[Chorus]
Point me to the sky abovе
I can't get there on my own
Walk mе to the graveyard
Dig up her bones

[Verse 3]
I have seen the demon's face
I have heard of her deathplace
I fall down on my knees and praised the ground
Horrible things that took her away

[Pre-Chorus]
And death climbs up the steps one by one
To give you the rose that's been burned by her son

[Chorus]
Point me to the sky above
I can't get there on my own
Walk me to the graveyard
Dig up her bones
Point me to the sky above
I can't get there on my own
Walk me to the graveyard
Dig up her bones
Bones

Total length: 31:52