When experimental metal band Genghis Tron decided to take a break after spending 18 months on the road promoting their last full-length studio album, Board Up the House, they never imagined it would be another decade before guitarist Hamilton Jordan and keyboardist Michael Sochynsky would start working on new music together again.
Over the years the two musicians exchanged musical ideas over the internet, but their priorities were elsewhere. Both had gone to law school and joined firms, and Jordan moved first to California, then Detroit, leaving them little time to consider the future of Genghis Tron.
Then in 2018, Jordan and his wife spent three days visiting Sochynsky and his family in upstate New York. They weren’t planning to work on music, but the night before, Jordan had picked up his guitar and improvised a circular melody. So he showed Sochinsky the passage and it sparked a creative connection.
“He whipped out a synthesizer and started playing chords on top of this melody,” recalls Jordan. “It had been so long since we were in the same room working on music and right away it felt good and natural.”
The song evolved into Alone in the Heart of the Light and was the springboard for the musicians to write a batch of new compositions, eight of which made it to their third album, Dream Weapon.
As evocative and well-crafted as it is, old-school Genghis Tron fans expecting volleys of turbulent, disorienting rhythms might be thrown by Dream Weapon. Throughout, Genghis Tron eschew blasting beats, ricocheting riffs and short-circuiting keyboards in favor of shimmering electric guitars, ambient keyboards and repetitive rhythms heavily influenced by 1970s Krautrock and ethereal psychedelia.
AXOLOGY
• GUITARS
First Act Custom Lola, 1988 Gibson Les Paul Standard, Fender Telecaster, Balaguer Custom
• AMPS
Diezel Herbert, Marshall JMP, Traynor
• PEDALS
God City (various), Electro-Harmonix (various), EarthQuaker Devices Rainbow Machine
• STRINGS
D’Addario
“We wanted to create something hypnotic and meditative,” Jordan says. “We used to want everything to be overwhelming, and sometimes we shot ourselves in the foot. Maybe there were great melodies or harmonies lurking underneath, but you could barely hear them because there was so much other stuff all over the place.”
Now that he and Sochynsky are musically linked again, Jordan looks forward to writing more for Genghis Tron and hope-fully touring. And he’s willing to bill fewer hours to his legal clients for the chance to play more shows.
“We can’t wait to get back out there,” Jordan says. “The only way we’ll stop now is if what we’re doing starts to feel too much like work.”
