Before & Apace premiere full album stream of The Denisovan

Before & Apace has existed for a long time in the mind of Devin Martyniuk. He originally started gathering ideas about this project back in high school, when he first read a phrase in Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”. It caught his attention and became the name of what is now his heavy prog endeavour.

Nearly two decades in the making, Before & Apace is presenting the debut album “The Denisovan”, a collection of epiphanies that have altered Martyniuk’s worldview and have been translated into musical expression. It is a sequence of existential discoveries in odd time signatures and a merger of thinking and feeling.

“The Denisovan” only has four tracks, but they encompass nearly a full hour in total. Although the heavy influences are undeniable, Martyniuk also borrows many compositional facets from the world of symphony orchestras: from variations of a theme, programmatic writing, and movement-based pieces that evoke a concept. ‘Simultanagnosia’, for example, the album’s final song and its capstone, was to be written as a “trilogy in 4 parts”, where the first 3 would tap into a disjointed version of each of three facets of life: the physical, the mental, and the spiritual. Each movement was meant to be jarring, disharmonious, or incomplete in some way on its own – incomplete or imbalanced. The fourth movement was intended to incorporate a component of each of the first 3 movements such that when integrated together, the disparate parts would only now make sense. Martyniuk explains more:

“I’ve always loved the idea of using music to share ideas with others. Things seem so much more profound this way. So in the same vein as Tool writes about Carl Jung, or how System of a Down scream for prison reform, I always wanted Before & Apace to be something constructive. So I use Before & Apace basically like a compendium of epiphanies and life lessons that have come my way every once in a while – kind of like my recipe book for living a good life. I would love nothing more than to present the Before & Apace discography to my kids or grandkids someday and say, ‘Here it is. This is what Daddy’s all about. This is how I think we should coexist with everyone around us on this one lonely rock in the sky.’ And I’m extremely proud to be able to say that I’ve now made the first volume.”

Martyniuk acknowledges that his music is not for everyone, but he imagines there will be people who resonate with it. He has already begun working on the follow-up.

“The Denisovan” is due out May 11, 2021. You can listen to it today already one day before the official release here through our exclusive album stream:

Track Listing:
1. Zeno (11:14)
2. Limbics (9:43)
3. Ontogeny (11:16)
4. Simultanagnosia (19:49)
Album Length: 52:04

Album Credits:
• All songs performed by: Before & Apace
• All songs written by: Before & Apace
• Produced by: Devin Martyniuk
• Mixed by: Christian Douglas and Devin Martyniuk @ Toneshift Audio, Allan, SK
• Mastered by: Brett Zilahi @ Carvalho Mastering, Toronto, ON
• Album Artwork by: Varya Vinogradova

Album Recording Band Line Up:
Permanent/Ongoing Member: Devin Martyniuk (guitar, vocals)
Additional Members for The Denisovan:
Kaylon Disiewich (bass, Taurus pedals)
Bryce Holcomb (vocals, guitar)
Arlan Kopp (drums, percussion)