Zeke Sky
New Hope, Pennsylvania, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2018 | MAJOR | AFM
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Zeke Sky is an American guitar picker, singer, composer and ‘Intergalactic Demon King’ is the title of his debut album. The ,,Overture” kicks off this album and it is a misleading instrumental orchestral track that is completely different from the other ten following songs! ,,On The Tip Of The Tongue” opens with piano, followed by a rather catchy rocky melody; furthermore, featuring clean vocals, guitar shredding and fast guitar solos.
A MIX OF DIFFERENT ROCK AND METAL STYLES
The music on Zeke Sky’s debut album is a mix of traditional heavy metal, psychedelic rock, and hard rock mixed with progressive musical elements. ,,Light The Sky” features heavy, fast guitar shredding, but also a rather “sweet,” catchy chorus, while ,,,Level The Heights” is a modern metal song with Annihilator elements and lots of symphonic elements, but also a rather “brutal” heavy chorus. ,,Light In The Hollow” is fast and aggressive, almost a thrash metal song with growling vocals, while ,,Endlessly Forever” is truly catchy.
ZEKE SKY SHOWS WHAT HE IS ABOUT
This album is a 100% pure metal rollercoaster with ferocious guitar work. Metal up your ass, heavy, proggy, powerful and melodic as well so, need I say more? ,,Firewitch” is the instrumental track in which Zeke shows what he is about: hard rocking guitar melodies and solos galore. So play it loud! This amazing sounding metal/hard rock album ends with ,,Lionheart”. A wonderful diverse hard rock/metal track showing all of Zeke Sky’s qualities in one song: heaviness, melody, diversity, clean vocals, amazing guitar picking, melodic as well as fast shredding! The only thing I do not like on this album is the growling/grunting on some of the tracks, but you cannot have it all, I guess…
`Intergalactic Demon King’ is definitely worth a listening as the guitar picker gives metal/hard rock music a diverse and up to date feeling! By the way, also for fans of Devin Townsend! - Headbangers LifeStyle
It takes some courage to admit that the creation of your band was originally “a little directionless,” as guitarist, vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Zeke Sky puts it. The Philadelphia-bred frontman of the Zeke Sky Band started out in 2017 with an eye on creating guitar heavy versions of The Beatles’ seminal album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The guitarist had stints in other bands as well and steadily began loving “progressive and technically driven music.”
It’s what has led up to the release of their latest single “Light the Sky,” which is an all-out incendiary, hyper-melodic offering of metal and rock, complete with catchy choruses and wild guitar solos. It follows their 2018 album Animals of God & War and the 2019 single “The Dark Beyond.” The song features the Zeke Sky Band’s bassist Kenny Scheffel (who also adds backing vocals) and drummer Adam Pierson, who are shaping the frontman’s penchant for a no-holds-barred blend of power metal, hard rock, prog and more. Sky adds about the process right now, “Writing the music is demanding and requires a bit of discipline and a sense of humor. If you find yourself taking the music itself too seriously, stagnation and decline can quickly reach out and grab you.”
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Sky says the latest release is the first part of a story that will be covered in their second full-length album, slated to release in Spring or Summer of 2021. It will be produced by guitarist Kevin Antreassian, from erstwhile mathcore torchbearers The Dillinger Escape Plan. The band is keen on doing a tour of the U.S. first, as soon as it’s safe and want to take off from there. “It’s touch and go at the moment,” Sky says about album and touring plans.
In the meantime, Sky says they’ve accrued fans from all around the globe so far, including India. The frontman rightly estimates that India has a following for instrumental music and rock music. He adds, “I also do get the sense that it’s a very active country on social media and my content performs very well. Touring in India is certainly a possibility in the future, I would be anxious to experience the country and its people.” - Rolling Stone IN
Calling yourself a “Warrior Poet Of Metal” is a statement. Recording an album completely alone except for the drums, too. Doing everything yourself can mean that you're not good at any of it - but multi-instrumentalist and singer Zeke Sky proves the opposite on his debut. The image conveyed by the title and cover is almost a hindrance for INTERGALACTIC DEMON KING – the overloaded kitsch of the first impression gives way to nuanced epic while listening. Zeke Sky offers a lot, mixes numerous sub-genres, but within one song there is never too much. 'Light The Sky' invokes rushing heavy metal, 'Light In The Hollow' features growls, catchy 'Level The Heights' starts with operatic vocals, and not just 'On The Top Of The Tongue' and 'Faith And Sorrow' could easily be the theme of a fantasy series. - Metal Hammer
Discography
INTERGALACTIC DEMON KING-2022
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“Zeke Sky is an incendiary of heavy metal”-Rolling Stone Magazine
“Zeke Sky-A metal hero”-Loud and Proud Italy
“One of the best albums of the year.”-Metal Hammer Magazine
“Zeke Sky’s Intergalactic Demon King is Superb”-Metal Digest
“Amazing album.”-Headbangers Lifestyle
The young guitarist, pianist and composer from New Hope, Pennsylvania known as Zeke Sky is an artifact of the old guard: totally self sufficient composers who play every instrument in a ruthless pursuit of aesthetic magnanimity. After 5 years of toil, the fruits of his labor are now ripened flesh: a crazed social media following of close to a quarter of a million across platforms, a record deal directly from the hands of industry legend Markus Staiger (putting him on the maps with some of the top bands in metal that are institutions of the golden age of heavy), and his first label release, both on digital and vinyl, that is seeing incredible reviews all over the world from fans and critics alike and sold into the thousands of copies despite it being his first record.
The music emerging from the young composer fits the paradigm of heavy metal; but within it are subtler aromas of virtuoso classical music, pop music and world music. The sounds go against the grain in painting bold and timeless pictures of war, love and struggle, on canvases crafted with heavier inclinations at hand. Taking cues from Metallica, Dream Theater, Mozart and Pink Floyd, the future is as bold as it is long for the upstarts, for only those who stomache the challenge of the climb shall taste the fruit of the golden mountain.
To many, those smoldering ruins of the heyday of epic, prose ridden and melodically rich rock music is a lost cause. And they must be forgiven; the onslaught of auto-tune and sonically safe song craft has left, as its legacy, a dystopian landscape of "sort of music", and beckons weary ears to take as comfort the sounds of old in days too far to be glimpsed.
Zeke Sky goes against the grain in composing bold, visionary songs without limitation. Appearing initially in 2018 as a viral Facebook guitar wizard, accruing hundreds of thousands of followers releasing videos showcasing guitar and piano mastery, Zeke started his own band and played a now mythical event opening for KINGS X as its first show.
The result of his writing efforts, however, were more pronounced, culminating in the 2022 release "Intergalactic Demon King."
Composed wholly by Sky, with all instruments (besides drums) played by Sky and all lyrics sung and written by Sky as well, the album has achieved critical acclaim, with many listeners referring to it as a masterpiece. The music is a blend of virtuoso metal, pop rock and psychedelic rock.
Looking onward, the band will play bold events with the vision of executing shows the match ambitions with instincts.
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