Nexus Meets… Heart Through Sacrifice

The brainchild of musician Doug Rimington, Heart Through Sacrifice is a forceful sonic blast with hard-hitting melodies and lyricism. We speak with Doug about his latest self-titled album, theme songs and future plans.

How did Heart Through Sacrifice come about?

Heart Through Sacrifice came about from a desire to create a complete music project. For some time I’d been playing in bands where we’d write songs, release an EP into the digital nothingness and play some small gigs. For this, I wanted to create a full set of songs for an LP, have a physical copy of it with custom artwork and play a gig that we put on instead of the usual ‘9 bands in one night’ situation that more promoters run. I knew to get this done in the time frame and vision I had in mind, I had to do this one on my own.

Describe your music in a single sentence.

My music is always going to be cinematic filled with melodic moments, spacey ambience, fast-paced verses, catchy choruses and crushing outros…like how a good movie should be!

What can you tell us about your new album Heart Through Sacrifice?

Heart Through Sacrifice was originally written as 10 songs and then a story was weaved into it and it became a concept album. The tale revolves around 3 characters, an orphan boy, a warrior woman and an evil monster chasing them both. The plan is to turn this into a graphic novel in the art style of the digital album cover, so it will have a kind of 90s DC comics flavour. Bec from Bullet on a String who did all the album art and logos will be heading up the graphic novel side of things.

What was the creative process like?

I feel like these songs have been in me for some time and as I learned new techniques and production, it just flowed. As I played all instruments on the album while writing I was able to chop and change adding bits of drums here, bass there, guitars, synths… all in pretty much real-time.

Which do you find more challenging: melody or lyrics?

I’d say both are quite hard for me as I’m not a vocalist. I start by noting down the themes of the songs and keywords. Then I create small word blocks and finally shape them to fit the rhythm of the song. But when I give them to the singer with my ‘demo vocals’, I always say, “Take my melody as guidance only and do what you feel works” as for sure, I am not a singer!

Do you believe song placement is important when creating an album and how did you choose the placement of your tracks on Heart Through Sacrifice?

I do feel song placement is important, especially for a concept album like Heart Through Sacrifice as it needs to take the listener on a journey. Starting from the initial taster and discovery, through to the dark times, and the quiet moments up until the epic closure! Tracks 2 & 3 on this album were initially the other way around but I needed the Beast character to be introduced before the warrior.

If you could change one thing about the album, what would it be?

Some production elements could be different, a few guitar lines here got lost in the mix. I would’ve loved to have had more time with Corinne on the vocals, she did an amazing job but I know if we had another day or two we could’ve done more. Also, my drumming has improved so much since recording this, in fact, I am actually going to re-record the track ‘Pride and Honour’ and re-release it for this exact reason. Ok, so that’s not one thing… 😄

If Heart Through Sacrifice had a theme song (not one of your songs), what would it be?

I’d like to say ‘My Last Serenade’ from Killswitch Engage! It’s really a different type of music (metalcore) but the passion, urgency and desperation of that song really reflects what I went through to get this album done.

What’s your go-to dance move?

Aaaaaah, I don’t really dance. I tend to be the guy at the gig smiling and nodding quietly while enjoying the musicianship.

What can we expect from Heart Through Sacrifice in the future?

Well, this album is getting a final push from a PR agency and then I will be fully working on album number 2. I have already written and demoed 12 tracks for this one and need to work on the story, lyrics and vocal melodies. I’m hoping to release this towards the end of 2022…but let’s see.