From the world of Velduran
Songs from an empire the dusk forgot.
Symphonic · Progressive · The first chapter of Velduran
EnterAbout the band
A symphony,
one kingdom
at a time
Static Grin builds a single world — Velduran — and scores its slow undoing in long-form symphonic music. It begins with Ira Draconum.
Static Grin is a progressive and symphonic project that raises one world, Velduran, a single concept album at a time. Each record is a chapter: long-form composition wedded to literary fantasy, written for the kind of listener who reads the liner notes twice and the appendices once, and then goes looking for the maps.
It begins with Ira Draconum — the Wrath of Dragons — the first chapter of that world set to music: an overture before a war Velduran has been losing, and winning, for longer than its empires have had names.
The name is a borrowed one: the fixed, patient smile a cathedral gargoyle keeps while the empire beneath it forgets why it was built. Static Grin makes music in exactly that register — grand, unhurried, and a little amused by its own grief.
The world
Velduran
Velduran is older than the kingdoms that ruled it. Its empires kept the heavens by hand — brass orreries the size of cathedrals, turned each dawn by men who had long forgotten the names of the stars they moved. The machinery still runs. No one remembers how to stop it.
This is not a story you are told. It is a door left ajar in a wall you did not know was there: a language half-legible on a fallen lintel, a music that seems, impossibly, to remember you. Step through, or don't. The empire has kept its dusk for a very long time, and it is in no hurry at all.
New single · out now
Mordrethyr
Rex sine sole — the king without a sun
The shadow that Ira Draconum was written to hold back — three movements sung from the throne that does not sleep.
All three play below — the first music drawn from Ira Draconum, ahead of the record itself.
Listen
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Words
[ Intro ] Tenebrae surgunt... tenebrae surgunt... Umbra venit ex profundis... Dies irae, dies illa... Rex tenebrarum vigilat... Ille numquam dormit... Ille semper spectat... Tenebrae surgunt! Tenebrae surgunt! Rex tremendae majestatis! Thronus ater expergiscitur! Nox aeterna venit! Nox aeterna venit! Surgit! Surgit! Dominus umbrarum! Tenebrae! Tenebrae! Aeternae! -
Words
[ Intro ] Dies irae, dies illa... Solvet saeclum in favilla... [ Verse I ] So they thought their towers stood eternal So they prayed their lanterns held the night Did they never read the older prophet Who foretold the dying of the light? [ Verse II ] I have walked the halls of every kingdom I have watched a thousand bright suns fall I have whispered to the bones of empires And the kings have answered to my call [ Pre-Chorus ] Now the seven think themselves escaped In a village built on ancient stone But the prophecy was never theirs And the throne was always mine alone [ Chorus ] I am the Black Throne of Mordrethyr! I am the silence after song! I am the patience of the centuries And the night that lasts so long! Hear the dragons in my keeping Hear the iron in my breath There is no road beyond my reaching There is no shore beyond my death! [ Verse III ] They have seen what I have done to Aelendor They have wept beside the burning sea Yet they ride toward a hidden valley Where they think themselves at last set free [ Verse IV ] Foolish children of the silver banner Foolish keepers of the broken oath Did you think a thousand years of waiting Would not find a darker breath of growth? [ Pre-Chorus ] I have hunted in the time before time I have feasted on the fall of kings Now the seven shall be seven nothings Beneath the shadow of my wings [ Chorus ] I am the Black Throne of Mordrethyr! I am the silence after song! I am the patience of the centuries And the night that lasts so long! Hear the dragons in my keeping Hear the iron in my breath There is no road beyond my reaching There is no shore beyond my death! [ Bridge ] Rex tremendae majestatis! Mordrethyr, dominus tenebrarum! Dies irae, dies illa! Solvet saeclum in favilla! [ Guitar Solo ] [ Narrated Interlude ] Find them. Find the village of lanterns. And when the snow turns red beneath their hooves, remind them of the name they will not forget... Mordrethyr. [ Final Chorus ] I am the Black Throne of Mordrethyr! I am the silence after song! I am the patience of the centuries And the night that lasts so long! Hear the dragons in my keeping Hear the iron in my breath There is no road beyond my reaching There is no shore beyond my death! [ Outro ] Mordrethyr... Mordrethyr... Dies irae... aeterna... -
Words
[ Intro ] Ante noctem... rex eram... Ante noctem... rex eram... [ Verse I ] Before the night had learned my name I was a king of morning lands I raised the first of all the towers With these once-unbroken hands [ Verse II ] And the sun burned bright upon my banner And the seven rivers knew my law I had everything a crown could gather And I feared what every mortal saw [ Pre-Chorus ] For the years were wolves around my throne And I heard them gnawing at the gate So I asked the dark below the mountains For a crown that time could not unmake [ Chorus ] I wear the sunless crown! The price of endless breath! I gave the morning to the darkness For a life beyond my death! Hear the silence where my heart was Hear the winter in my veins I am the first king and the last king And the night is all that reigns! [ Verse III ] And the fields forgot the taste of summer And my halls grew quiet as the snow And the ones who loved me died of waiting For a king who watched but could not go [ Verse IV ] And I sat a thousand years in silence As the throne turned black beneath my hands And the name my mother sang at cradle Was buried with the morning lands [ Verse V ] Then the dragons came to call me master For the dark had made us of one kind And I took the name the shadows gave me And I left my mortal name behind [ Pre-Chorus ] Now the years are wolves upon my leash And the night obeys my quiet word But the sun still burns in children's voices And it cuts me like a holy sword [ Chorus ] I wear the sunless crown! The price of endless breath! I gave the morning to the darkness For a life beyond my death! Hear the silence where my heart was Hear the winter in my veins I am the first king and the last king And the night is all that reigns! [ Bridge ] Rex primus, rex ultimus Corona sine sole Tenebrae surgunt in corde meo Nomen meum: Mordrethyr [ Guitar Solo ] [ Final Verse ] And somewhere beneath a kinder mountain Burns a lantern I have never known And a child who carries half my shadow Rides to break the sunless throne [ Final Chorus ] I wear the sunless crown! The price of endless breath! I gave the morning to the darkness For a life beyond my death! Hear the silence where my heart was Hear the winter in my veins I am the first king and the last king And the night is all that reigns! [ Outro ] Ante noctem... rex eram... Mordrethyr... rex sine sole...
Debut album
Ira Draconum
Ira Draconum — the Wrath of Dragons
An overture to a war with neither a first day nor a last — sung in the tongue of the empire that began it.
Hear the opening movement below — more will follow as the record is raised.
Listen
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Words
[ Instrumental Overture ] [ Choir ] Gloria! Gloria in excelsis! Surgite, milites aeterni! Audite vocem tubae sacrae! Veniat regnum, veniat lux! Sanctus, sanctus Dominus virtutum! In gloria, in aeternum! Cantate victoriam! Surgite! Surgite! Surgite! Gloria aeterna! Gloria aeterna! Ad bellum! Ad victoriam!
Notices
From the reading-lamp press
Advance word from the slow magazines — the ones that still listen by candlelight.
Few debuts earn the word literary without wearing it as a costume. Ira Draconum earns it, then never mentions it again — a symphony that happens to be sung in the dead tongue of its own empire. Grand enough for the gatefold; quiet enough for the reading-lamp. We have not stopped playing the overture since.
Prog has always loved a cathedral; Static Grin builds one and then lets the dragons in. The dragons here do not rage so much as remember — and the music scores that remembering as something slow, interlocking, and quietly devastating.
Somewhere between Pale Communion and the marginalia of a medieval bestiary. It asks more of a first-time listener than most debuts dare — and repays the second hearing far better than the first, which is the highest praise the form allows.