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 Title: “Cupid’s Scythe”By: Penetralia From: TBA Debut Album Release Date: January 11, 2014 Length: 4:47 Format: CD Single, Digital Download, 7” Single, Weekly Airplay Recorded: January 2014 – Rever Studios, London, England Genre: Metalcore, Post-Hardcore Label: Liberation/Nomad Writer(s): Koda Espinosa Producer(s): Penetralia, Bill Owens “Cupid’s Scythe” is a song written and recorded by an American alternative rock band called ‘Penetralia’. It is the debut single from the band which were tipped as one of the ‘Ones to Watch’ for 2014 by the well-known rock publication ‘Alternative Press’. Having played around the west-coast music scene for a couple of years, the band begun to out-grow the small clubs that they had become accustomed to performing and at the end of 2013 they received their first major break in terms of making an impression on the music industry when they were offered a recording contract at ‘Liberation/Nomad’ records, the well-known alternative record label that has housed names like ‘Riot! In The Boulevard’ and ‘Reported Failure’. This was taken as an indication that 2014 would be the year that they get an opportunity to work on their debut album and tour more extensively than before. Signing to ‘Liberation/Nomad’ records was the opportunity that the band needed to finally move to the next level and having been tipped as one of the ones to watch for 2014, it would appear that there is some form of anticipation surrounding this heavy rock outfit. In early January 2014, the band headed across to the United Kingdom to check out a recording studio called ‘Rever Studios’, recommended to the band from a label representative and the band agreed to spent a month out in the UK to begin demoing songs that they had already written and performed regularly over the past few years, they set aside a couple of tracks to work on, but threw opted against recording a lot of their older material, preferring to begin the creative process from scratch at the recording studio, they enlisted the help of little known record producer ‘Bill Owens’ and begun to flesh out a couple of ideas for what they wanted to achieve from their debut album, one of the first completed songs was the track ‘Cupid’s Scythe’ which is drenched in somewhat dark and romantic gothic-esque lyrics, the tracks title comes from the idea of Cupid becoming a darker and more sinister entity, switching his trusted arrow of love for the grim reapers scythe, according to primary songwriter and lead singer Koda, “It was a bizarre thing, in all honesty. The root of the song is about the flip-side of love, like an underground love a more darker and tainted love than you generally hear sung about. The thought came that what if Cupid was evil and then I started to mess around with the idea of that, thinking about how what if Cupid decided to provide everybody with a tainted love and then obviously the thought that he’d have an axe rather than an arrow of love, it just expanded that darker vision of love a little further. It scared the living sh*t out of me at first.”The band worked endlessly on fleshing out the perfect musical backdrop to such a dark and eerie set of lyrics and lyrical theme. According to producer ‘Bill Owens’, the band spent most of their first three weeks in the studio working on the one song in order to get it sounding like how Koda had envision it when he thought up the idea and lyrics. It was ear-marked potentially as the band’s debut single almost instantly by the band, clearly feeling passionate about the song enough to have it introduce people to the band as a whole. ‘Cupid’s Scythe’ will serve as the first major introduction to the band and their musical style, it will also have the task of being the lead single from their debut album. Whether the single fails to generate interest or not will no doubt give an indication on what the anticipation for their debut album will be like. The music was composed by the entire band, with the lyrics being written solely by lead singer ‘Koda Espinosa’ at the beginning of January. The song was recorded at ‘Rever Studios’ in London and was produced by the band alongside ‘Bill Owens’, the single will be released in a number of different formats, including as a physical CD Single, Digital Download and 7” Single. It will also be set to stream via the band’s official website, the official website of Liberation/Nomad records as well as Spotify and Soundcloud. It will be released and distributed through ‘Liberation/Nomad Records’ from January 11, 2014. Song DescriptionThe title of the song comes from the thought of Cupid swapping his weapon of choice (arrow of love) for that of the Grim Reapers (scythe) and the song plays on that imagery with lyrics with dark overtones and dramatic and eerie music to accompany and inform the lyrics to a certain extent. The song begins with a screechy piano introduction, the sound of static noise coming from the sound system can also be heard during the opening moments of the dark influenced track, the static fades away and is then replaced by a powerful electric guitar riff, a dirtier sounding guitar riff rather than the more easily accessibly guitar sounds of pop-rock and pop-punk bands. Which then leads to the opening verse of the song, the volume of the instruments fade ever so slightly as the voice of lead singer ‘Koda’ appears, the first time that a lot of people would have heard his voice, it’s a powerful rock vocal tinged with a tenderness that portrays the sound of someone in an emotional state of agony, he wails out the opening lines of the song, “Come a little closer, darlin’/I can’t feel your eyes piercing at me from across the room/Clench your first a little tighter angel/You want hell, we’ll be there pretty f*cking soon/That’s not an empty promise/Believe me when I say I’ll make it come true/Because you make me f*cking crazy/But we both know that I ain’t half as crazy as you/My screwed up little goddess/Is such a f*cking mess.”The tracks lyrics emphasise an alternative love, the romanticism within the lyrics are the sort that would be more likely to appeal to scene and emo girls rather than your typical open-hearted romantics, put the lyrics with the voice and the emotion that ‘Koda’ attempts to put across and there’s a good chance that you could be looking at the next unlikely hero of emotional young adults from all around the world. With the opening verse out of the way, the second verse is an opportunity to show the other side of the band, the side of the band influenced by the even heavier genres, amidst the backdrop of the piano and lead guitars, not to mention the addition of the bass guitar and drums which have now arrived is the chance for the lead vocalist to let loose, he screams out in metal style, “She begged cupid for an eternal love/But he said he’d traded in his arrow for a scythe/He granted us a tainted love/Live together in hell/Never alive/He doused his scythe with poison/Knowing we’d both rip each other apart/Said ‘you want an eternal love’/Then pierced it through our hearts.” again highlighting a darker lyrical theme in comparison to the acts that could become their contemporary’s in the coming months. A brief instrumental break which sees the combination of piano and lead guitar work perfectly in tandem with one another is an opportunity for the song to get back on relatively steady ground, it’s lyrics continuing to convey it’s dark overtones but the vocal a little more emotive and melancholy, certainly a lot more easier to decipher than the previous verse and the lyrical side of the song are highlighted as ‘Koda’ fires out lines drenched in love/hate and gothic imagery “She smiled as we went down that night/She dug her fingernails into my arm so tight.” and “Maybe she’ll realize that the book of love/Is now written in her own blood.” and with that it becomes evident that this is a band very much with their own style. Review
 “At the beginning of every year, there are always the ‘Ones to Watch’, a lot of the time, the acts that we see appear on these lists are nowhere to be seen the following twelve months but sometimes it does work out. It’s always difficult to predict because as we all know, the music industry can be a very unpredictable place for anyone. But ‘Penetralia’ are a band that appear pretty determined to be the ‘Ones to Watch’ in 2014, although on this early evidence it appears that they will be doing things their own way, without compromise, whether their label allows this will no doubt become obvious in the coming months as they start to step up to the plate and attempt to make some sort of mark on the music industry and a little more likely, the rock scene as a whole. But they do have a very good home in the form of ‘Liberation/Nomad Records’, a label that nurtured the overwhelming success of ‘Riot! In The Boulevard’, admittedly those two bands are world apart in terms of style but they also foresaw the success of slightly harder sounding acts, ‘Reported Failure’ and ‘REALM’, the latter appearing to be a clear influence on this young and exciting band from California.
So with a title like ‘Cupid’s Scythe’ you may already find yourself reaching at the kitchen drawer for a knife and searching for an accessible vein. But you should probably hold off, at least for a good three and a half minutes because as debut singles go, this is quite out there for a band that seem to have their hearts set on making a real go of a music career. It’s an interesting enough song to capture your attention, at least for the most part, it begins in an eerie but somewhat tender fashion and the voice of lead singer ‘Koda’ is actually something to behold, he mixes a powerful assertiveness with a creaking sort of ‘he’s gonna break down any minute now’ vibe, it’s not so easy to describe his voice, the term high-pitched brings to mind the wrong sort of image, but he can hit some high notes, but it’s quite meaty in places too, how’s that possible? And then you find yourself left wondering where you are as the pace quickly changes and he screams down the microphone, not entirely sure what he says during the second verse on the initial listen but it sounds aggressive and sort of awesome and it actually leads into the rest of the song pretty well.
The instrumentation is pretty good, it’s the piano and guitar combination that sells the band as a whole and in places it does feel like lead guitarist ‘Beau Nero’ is actually carrying the band through at certain points, bassist ‘Gunner Lee’ and drummer ‘Jonah Espinosa’ do redeem themselves during the final pre-chorus and chorus though and with time this can become a really tight and exciting band to hear perform. Let’s face it, it is pretty rare that you get a song where all instrumentalists nail it throughout the entire song, but there’s enough about these people as individual musicians that they can get by the occasional error in judgement. So for a debut single, they have definitely aimed high, if we were rating this track then I’d give it a four out of five, if it was like the fourth or fifth single in the bands careers then maybe three and a half out of five, but due to the fact that this is a debut single, the band haven’t recorded anything prior, it’s all looking pretty promising, for now at least.”
– Alternative Press Review
Quote:“When we headed into a recording studio, we had a whole bunch of songs that we had been performing for a couple of years and the plan was to record those songs and choose the best from those. We changed our minds pretty quickly, I’m not exactly the greatest person in the world when it comes to making a decision and sticking with it, ask all of my exes, they’ll vouch for me on that one. So we just sort of though, f*ck it, we’re in a recording studio for the best part of a month, let’s see what we can come up with, we had a bunch of compositions that we created and that we thought sounded pretty rad and so the task was to put words to those and I was thinking about the alternative side of love, for whatever reason. The side of love that involves insane fights and batsh*t crazy chicks, we’ve all been there.
So I was looking for inspiration and the thought of ‘what if cupid was darker, what if he was sorta evil’ came into my mind, it was a bizarre thing, in all honesty. The root of the song is about the flip-side of love, like an underground love a more darker and tainted love than you generally hear sung about. The thought came that what if Cupid was evil and then I started to mess around with the idea of that, thinking about how what if Cupid decided to provide everybody with a tainted love and then obviously the thought that he’d have an axe rather than an arrow of love, it just expanded that darker vision of love a little further. It scared the living sh*t out of me at first.
The guys were on board with the song idea pretty quickly and they say write about what you know. I have a type when it comes to relationships, I have a weird f*cked up psyche that for some reason attracts me to girls that I can see have many flaws, I don’t know why, but I’ve always found myself attracted to girls that are a little screwed up, whether it’s because I think I can make them feel better or because I like the challenge of trying to make em’ feel better, I have no idea and from personal experience, it’s definitely not possible. But hey, we all have our type! Anyway, the point is that I’m attracted to the alternative types, the sorts that enjoy gothic novellas, the sorts that have this bizarre view on romance that seems to be all about eternal love and when I go, you have to go with me. That’s where the basis of the lyrics come from, the feelings and the beliefs of girls that I’ve been into and their visions of romance and I’m a f*cking sucker for it all, I find myself getting really intense about that sort of thing and believing in all of this made up nonsense and I can’t deny that I find it passionate and romantic in a way that I can’t really explain, but like I said, the lyrics have come from those alternative views of passion and romance, whether you have the same feelings towards that sort of thing or not.”
- Koda Espinosa Lyrics“Come a little closer, darlin’
I can’t feel your eyes piercing at me from across the room
Clench your fist a little tighter, angel
You want hell, we’ll be there pretty f*cking soon
That’s not an empty promise
Believe me when I say I’ll make it come true
Because you make me f*cking crazy
But we both know that I ain’t half as crazy as you
My screwed up little goddess
Is such a f*cking mess
She begged cupid for an eternal love
But he said he’d traded in his arrow for a scythe
He granted us a tainted love
Live together in hell
Never alive
He doused his scythe with poison
Knowing we’d both rip each other apart
Said ‘you want eternal love’
Then pierced it through our hearts
She smiled as we went down that night
She dug her fingernails deep into my arm so tight
She begged and pleaded
There’s nothing that we can’t do
But heaven is no longer an option, now that hell is waiting on you
If it’s what she wants then we’ll let her get it
Knowing that she’ll later regret it
When she realizes that there’s no way out
She’ll beg, plead and shout
Maybe she’ll realize that the book of love
Is now written in her own blood
Never to fall
To feel anything at all
Just endless
Emptiness
My screwed up little goddess
Is such a f*cking mess
Take the shot of love, let it rip us apart
We’ll let cupid’s scythe pierce us both through the heart
Granting us an eternal love
Together in hell, heaven’s no longer above
We’ll rewrite the rules
In poison and blood
Put each other through pain
Like all lovers should
Pierced by cupid’s scythe
Together in hell
Never alive
Tearing us apart
With poison and blood
Pierced through our heart”PersonnelKoda Espinosa – lead vocals, rhythm guitar, lyrics, composition, production Beau Nero – lead guitar, composition, production Gunner Lee – bass guitar, backing vocals, composition, production Jonah Espinosa – drums, percussion, composition, production Xander Felix – piano, electronics Bill Owens – production, engineering, mixing Sound AlikePierce The Veil – Bulls In The Bronx
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