Zach Adams
Dead Man Walking
Zach Adams didn’t just drop a debut album. Zach built a whole world and then set it on fire. Dead Man Walking isn’t just music, it’s also a novel, a horror/fantasy trip where the songs and the story bleed into each other until you can’t tell where one ends and the other begins.
Adams comes out of Alaska, which makes sense the more you listen. The record feels cold and vast in places, jagged and heavy in others, like it was carved out of frozen ground. There’s melancholy in the air, but also chaotic moments you half expected but still weren’t ready for.
It’s self-produced, DIY to the bone. That means there’s no smoothing out the edges, no outside hands cutting it down to fit some industry blueprint. Instead, you get long riffs that wander exactly where they need to, guitars stacked on top of spacey synths, drum patterns that crash in to the mix. It’s progressive, it’s heavy, it’s strange, and it’s alive.
Adams comes out of Alaska, which makes sense the more you listen. The record feels cold and vast in places, jagged and heavy in others, like it was carved out of frozen ground. There’s melancholy in the air, but also chaotic moments you half expected but still weren’t ready for.
It’s self-produced, DIY to the bone. That means there’s no smoothing out the edges, no outside hands cutting it down to fit some industry blueprint. Instead, you get long riffs that wander exactly where they need to, guitars stacked on top of spacey synths, drum patterns that crash in to the mix. It’s progressive, it’s heavy, it’s strange, and it’s alive.
Some tracks line up directly with characters in the novel. The title track is the main character’s theme but also a taunt from his enemy. “Drown” pulls you straight into his head, choking on doubt and struggle. By the time you get to “Phantom Love,” the closer, the whole thing feels like you’ve been dragged through a movie that only half-exists on screen, the rest of it happening somewhere in your own brain.
People have been calling it “The Beatles on antidepressants.” Others throw around names like Jim Butcher and Douglas Adams when they talk about the writing. But honestly, comparisons don’t really pin it down. Zach’s doing their own thing, bending literature and music into one strange, dark, addictive shape.
And this is only the start. Dead Man Walking is book one and album one. Adams is already deep into the next chapter (A World Apart) and talking about more records, more novels, more branches in the Ivyverse. Basically: this world’s about to get a lot bigger.
If you’re into heavy progressive rock, experimental storytelling, or just artists who build whole universes instead of singles, you’ll want in now. Dead Man Walking is out. Read it, listen to it, live in it.
People have been calling it “The Beatles on antidepressants.” Others throw around names like Jim Butcher and Douglas Adams when they talk about the writing. But honestly, comparisons don’t really pin it down. Zach’s doing their own thing, bending literature and music into one strange, dark, addictive shape.
And this is only the start. Dead Man Walking is book one and album one. Adams is already deep into the next chapter (A World Apart) and talking about more records, more novels, more branches in the Ivyverse. Basically: this world’s about to get a lot bigger.
If you’re into heavy progressive rock, experimental storytelling, or just artists who build whole universes instead of singles, you’ll want in now. Dead Man Walking is out. Read it, listen to it, live in it.