Levitsky had just relocated to a new city in early 2020 when the world around him began to change, and it hit him hard. “I was in a new town,” he explains. “I still felt like a stranger in a strange world.”
He had a vision of combining genres and creating a bridge between the prog world, which he enjoyed growing up, and the metal world. “With that vision, I started putting pen to paper, one thing led to another and I connected with all of these other people who were just as isolated as myself.” The musician sees this as a coming together of worlds, a coincidence that was always meant to happen. He created the demos for the album alone, and wanted them to be as accurate to the final product as possible, before posting them on forums and apps to find “people who use music to help themselves as well” to work with on the release.
He gathered an eclectic group of people to work and record together, but aside from Levitsky and vocalist Sylvain Auclair, none of the other members of The Anchoret have ever met in person. “I never expected such talented people to reach out, but I got lucky,” he explains. In reality, the musicianship, writing and end result of Levitsky’s ideas is more than likely what drew in Auclair, and fellow collaborators Leo Estalles, James Knoerl and The Tangent’s Andy Tillison. “I would love nothing more than to meet these people. It did all begin with loneliness...