All-guitar dark atmosphere guitar melodies

NocturnalSun

The Dark Wanderer
I finally got my shit together and over the course of 2 months have recorded 8 songs for a Demo CD. The tracklist is as follows:

NOCTURNAL SUN
-DEAD OF NIGHT DEMO CD
-----------------------------
1.Eternal Dusk
2.Embrace The Dark
3.Riding The Mist
4.Twilight Sonata
5.Her Ghost In The Fog (Cradle of Filth cover)
6.It's Been Awhile (Staind cover)
7.Pinball Map (In Flames cover)
8.Only For The Weak (In Flames cover)

The first four I've put my all into and are composed by myself. Nocturnal Sun, my band persay, is basically a one-man band. My songs are all guitar (no drums/vocals except for drums on It's Been Awhile) and I've pieced them together very nicely in my home recording studio. The 2 In Flames cover songs are a bit outdated since I recorded them back close to 4 months ago and my skill has consistently improved, but until I find the time to re-record them, they will remain rough covers.

Of course I don't expect anyone to buy the CD unless you really want to support me, because the songs are all-guitar songs and not a full band. If you could just take a look at the two songs I have put up on www.musictx.com/nocturnalsun (Riding The Mist and Twilight Sonata) and give me some feedback, that would be greatly appreciated. If you want to buy my demo CD, feel free to email me with your request and I will ship one off to you for a very low price.

the link to my main website and the album information for Dead of Night is:
http://www.freewebs.com/nocturnalsun

Any feedback would be great, so please post it here. Thanks everyone!
 
Damn, I liked em both a whole lot, especially Twilight Sonata. All the recording sounds really professional, that's awesome that you did that out of hte home.
In Riding the Mist I really like it when the second guitar joins in, it fits really well, and built the song up some.
And Twilight Sonata was gorgeous, and again, when the second guitar comes in it rocks. Very well done.
I'll post some more on this later when I listen to them both some more times (which I'm definitely going to do, for they were both really pretty), and maybe I'll be able to give you some criticism, but from the first couple times through, they really kicked ass, and grats on writing/recordin em :D
-Needle-
 
thanks big time man! hehe... it's actually recorded with $245 software even though I paid $0 for it :). I love putting the second guitar in on harmony because ever since I heard In Flames do it on most of their songs, I was hooked. But anyway... any guitarist's criticism you can give me would be great, so I can improve my playing more.

:) thanks again
 
I like the first song, nice and quiet. Nice melody too. Can't really say the same about the second, because of the lead guitars. Not the best tone or vibrato, and the phrasing wasn't quite up there either. And don't name a song sonata if you didn't compose it in sonata form. But anyway, don't let my opinion get you down, some of your stuff was pretty nice, so you're on the right track.
 
then again Symphony X is called 'symphony', yet they don't use one... hmm... I think I'll stick with Sonata just becase it gives it a nice ring. thanks anyway. I'm definitely still learning because I've only been playing for 5 years, so I'll work on getting technique a bit tighter if I do some more songs next year.
 
gotta agree that the lead tone on Sonata is waay too harsh, especially after the great accoustic tone that is so nice and warm...its kinda painful. I liked the parts though.

riding the mist is much better, I wish I could play like that but so far classical style has eluded me.
 
I was originally going to name it something like "Cold Gray Skies" or something, and I'm beginning to see that it matches that name more than Twilight Sonata. I actually wanted to go for the cutting, chilling, painful deal to counteract the warm, nice acoustic tone, symbolizing the coldness of night cutting the peace that comes before it at dusk. I like to use imagery alot in my songs, as you might be able to tell. Riding The Mist says it all in the title, so I wanted to take it to another level and add the imagery.

Anyway, these songs are part of a demo cd, and most demo cds really suck, so I guess I'm lucky this one doesn't suck as much as I've heard others suck. It's a demo, so I can always eventually go professional and do actual studio recordings of these instead of home studio recordings.
 
well I see the point, but you can get the effect without going quite that far. there is musically effect and then there is causing pain to the listener...which ya don't want.

but damn you're 15? very impressive.
 
ah ok. I was thinking about dropping the treb a bit before recording, but it would sound like a computer on crack if I did because I had it on Neck pickup. It would sound like a MIDI solo... oh well, it's not good right now, but it'll have to do until I get time/money for a studio recording session. Thanks again btw. yeah, I'm 15, but most people around me don't think it's that impressive. I still need to get better big time, since I'm in my school's jazz band on guitar also. But thanks again.