Letters to Existence

***Letters to Existence*** is the fourth album by October Noir, released on September 22, 2023. This is the first album with Tyler Fleming on drums, Trey Ozinga on guitar, and Doug Lane after switching to keyboards, who played guitars on their previous album.

Three singles were released from this album, all in different years—"Endless Lonely", released on September 20, 2022, "Forever Haunt" (featuring Nadia Kodes who sings with Tom), released on March 31, 2023, and "A Halo Hung from Horns", released on January 1, 2024. The latter two songs also have music videos attached to it.

## Background and production

At the time their last album *Fate, Wine, & Wisteria* was released on September 22, 2021, there were a trio of members that made up the band after their keyboardist Justin Thompson left the band for personal reasons in late July 2021. In early December 2021 their drummer Daniel Stickz Bryant was fired from the band, then a few weeks later on New Year's Eve drummer Tyler Fleming was hired. October Noir released the remaster of the first album *The Haunting and the Powerful* on January 14, 2022, and Tyler contributed drums in some of the tracks including the new song exclusive to the remaster "Beautifool".

In June 2022, still without their keyboardist, October Noir announced that they're no longer an active band, saddening the fanbase. That gloom didn't last long as over a month later, plans for the next album to be released in September 2023 was announced, exciting the fans, as the group began writing songs for that album. On September 20, 2022 the song that will be included on that album, "Endless Lonely", was released after it was done recording already. On November 19, 2022 the band revealed another song "Clench" when it played that live at The Merry Widow. Finally in late November 2022, then-guitarist Doug Lane was moved to the keyboards and twelve days later guitarist Trey Ozinga came to the band, completing the foursome once again.

After the holidays are over and 2023 gotten underway, their work on the album intensify by recording the rest of the songs in Tom's residence in Pensacola, Florida, just like in all their prior albums, with instruments and equipment set up in the parlor that was converted to studio. Trey Ozinga said during the August 5 livestream of the new album that "A Halo Hung from Horns" was the first song he contributed. ON released another song for the album, "Forever Haunt", on March 30, 2023 where it features co-vocalist Nadia Kodes. The album was finished in July.

## Release

*Letters to Existence* was released on September 22, 2023—the day where it goes from summer to autumn, exactly as titled for one of its tracks. That's exactly two years after their previous album *Fate, Wine, & Wisteria* came out. Since the band formed in late 2016, October Noir has been releasing an album every odd-numbered year since 2017. The album release will include digipak version with 12-page booklet included.

Although it won't 'officially' be released until September 22, some of the fans were receiving orders of *Letters to Existence* CDs as early as early August, and Eryk Wadleigh Silver of *Moon Burns Productions* received his copy in late July. Plus on August 5, fans got to listen to the whole album while getting feedback during the livestream on Facebook and Youtube. Three fans received free CDs with band member's signatures on the cover after the band picked top three winners of the livestream.

## Title and cover art

From the time that the album was announced, they were originally going to call the album *Letters to Elizabeth* to refer to the memory of Tom being with Elizabeth King. It was revealed in March 2023 that the title was a joke, so the third word in the title was replaced by Existence to make the title less personal and more general. The changed title made it mean we owe the nature that allows us to exist through spirituality, as if writing a thank you letter to God for granting us existence.

Unlike the first three albums by October Noir, green isn't displayed on the *Letters* album cover. Instead orange and red were used on the cover to be more autumnal to match the colors of the season per the name of the band. The cover shows a pellet with cursive LE on it apparently on the gritted orange sandpaper or tablecloth.

## Music and lyrics

According to Tom Noir in an interview, this album will be very diverse and mainstream with abundant ’80s-styled riffs and beats, ethereal, dark atmospheric sounds as well as occasional lighter and even poppish sounds produced by keyboards. *Letters to Existence* explores about love, loss, pain, death, deep connection to spirituality and nature, and life through the seasons. As it just said, there will be three songs titled each after the four seasons—"Spring", "Summer to Autumn", "Winter"—all are around 3-minute instrumentals, but originally they were all going to be in a single track before deciding to split apart and scatter among the tracks.

### Songs

This album has a dozen tracks and lasts 76½ minutes. There are a lot of albums where the first track is a short one, and *Letters to Existence* is no different. The title of the first track is an aforementioned instrumental "Spring", which contains feelings of spring hence its title. The second track "Endless Lonely" was released as a single one year before this album came out, and the song is about seeing ghost of a virgin girl in his dream while being lonely. "A Halo Hung from Horns" contains *Dante's Inferno*-inspired lyrics and even has quoted sample of the poem read by Justin Oliver. It features music video (which was unveiled on January 1, 2024) where it shows them doing exorcism on a possessed girl. "Forever Haunt" has female vocals by Nadia Kodes who sings along with Tom.

"Deja View" has the most Halloween-y sound of the album and it is about repeatedly driving over and over again on dark roads at night leading to progressively decreasing love caused by the effects of déjà vu. "Summer to Autumn" is another short, season-titled instrumental which contains several time changes in them. The very upbeat "Clench" was the second song of the album unveiled, this time when that was played live at The Merry Widow two months after the release of "Endless Lonely".

"Tourniquet" is a straightforward "rock" song with a bit of rock 'n roll element in it. "For Honor" is a very Def Leppard-like song and splits into three cantos, with the third having vocals where it chants 'Healing waters' along with rhythm sound almost identically to the end of Type O Negative song "These Three Things" during which 'Salvation found' is chanted. "Flash Paper Matches" is split into two cantos where the second having the same title as the song has strong resemblance to the movie *Killer Klowns from Outer Space* theme song.

A la 'gone for the winter', after the song "She's Gone", the final track title is also the most dreaded season—"Winter", which is sludgy doom and features former Woods of Ypres guitarist Bryan Belleau, where the spoken word was taken directly from the lyrics of the Wood of Ypres song "Move On! (The Woman Will Always Leave the Man)".

### Tracklist

1. "Spring" (instrumental) – 2:50
2. "Endless Lonely" (released as single) – 7:33
	* I. "Endless Lonely" – 3:13 (0:00–3:13)
	* II. "Voice Inside Her" – 4:20 (3:13–7:33)
3. "A Halo Hung from Horns" (released as single) – 6:16
	* I. "A Halo Hung from Horns" – 4:54 (0:00–4:54)
	* II. "Trading Life for Hell" – 1:22 (4:54–6:16)
4. "Forever Haunt" (released as single; feat. Nadia Kodes) – 6:38
5. "Deja View" (alt. titled "Forever Drive") – 8:11
6. "Summer to Autumn" (instrumental) – 3:00
	* I. "Summer" – 1:01 (0:00–1:01)
	* II. "Autumn" – 1:59 (1:01–3:00)
7. "Clench" (alt. titled "Murder") – 8:18
	* I. "Murder" – 3:30 (0:00–3:30)
	* II. "Voice Inside Her" – 3:40 (3:30–7:10)
	* III. "Murder (reprise)" – 1:08 (7:10–8:18)
8. "Tourniquet" – 6:48
9. "For Honor" (alt. titled "Honor") – 9:20
	* I. "Honor" – 3:33 (0:00–3:33)
	* II. "Naked Truth" – 3:07 (3:33–6:40)
	* II. "Healing Waters" – 2:40 (6:40–9:20)
10. "Flash Paper Matches" – 9:02
	* I. "Blindfold" – 5:57 (0:00–5:57)
	* II. "Flash Paper Matches" – 3:05 (5:57–9:02)
11. "She's Gone" – 5:13
12. "Winter" (feat. Bryan Belleau) – 3:17

## Reviews

On August 1, 2023 the first review of *Letters to Existence* was written by Eryk Wadleigh Silver who received the early copy by the band and published by *Moon Burns Productions*. The review quoted that "This band just keeps getting better and better. They just sound so perfectly gloomy, doomy. The production on *Letters To Existence* is flawless. It's so clean and well done."

*Brutal Planet Magazine* journalist Dustin Peterson wrote the review on the site on September 8, saying "The structure of the album itself takes a listener on a musical journey through four distinct seasons as the scenery continually shifts and evolves around them. The dense, detailed songs are packed with inspiration and emotion."

A writer on *MK Ultra Magazine* commented that "Spanning all types of emotional discovery, *Letters to Existence* takes listeners on a journey through the seasons of life, and in turn, of the human experience."

Scott Penfold write the webicle about the release of the album on *Loaded Radio* opined that "*Letters to Existence* is a simultaneously inspiring and melancholic journey that transports listeners back to the ’80s in a spiritually charged manner."

There are couple of video reviews of this album. A review by Bloody Chuckles Studios rated the album 10/10. A review by Concrete Spew said that Tom Noir replicated Type O Negative sounds better than an AI could.

## Personnel

* **Tom Noir** – vocals, bass | keyboards on "Endless Lonely" | writing, engineering, mixing, mastering, production
* Trey Ozinga – guitar
* Tyler Fleming – drums
* Doug Lane – keyboards

**Guest/session performers**

* Nadia Kodes – vocals, writing on "Forever Haunt"
* Bryan Belleau – guitar on "Winter"
* Justin Oliver – vocal readings on "A Halo Hung from Horns"