Celldweller - "My Personal Favorite" Musicianist | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Celldweller is a solo multi-musicianist playing in various genres, including EDM, Metal, "Dubstep". His music is composed mostly by digital and organic (instruments such as drums, piano, guitar). He has also made music for several major media productions such as the Deadrising 2 and Deadrising 3(Video Game) soundtrack, and appearences in Iron Man, Spider Man 2 and 3, and an extended list included here

    Who is Celldweller?

    Klayton, also known as Scott Albert, is Celldweller. He has been active in the music industry since the late 1980's with several different bands he created or helped form. He performed with the Band Angeldust for five years, with Criss Angel (from Criss Angel: Mind Freak). Klayton left Angeldust in 2000 to fully focus on his new idea, Celldweller.

    In 1999, Klayton released the Celldweller EP, to build heap and to maintain relevancy. Klayton, now Celldweller, devoted four years to release his first full album. With eighteen total tracks, this debut eponymous album climbed to position 17 on the U.S. Billboard Top Internet Album Sales in 2003.

Switchback - Celldweller

    Blackstar

    He continued releasing albums at his typically steady pace, with the exception of many E.Ps and demos posted on his YouTube channel (which he is very active on). In 2009, Celldweller finally began releasing his new album Wish Upon a Blackstar, with an unfortunate twist. Klayton choose to release the album in five separate chapters, two songs for chapters one through four; the fifth including the remainder of the album and its complete release. This sequence lasted from 2009 to 2012, with many teasers along the way.



    Songs

    The Wish Upon a Blackstar album is in my opinion the greatest album published. Every song in the album was brilliant. All the songs have beautiful synchronization across various instruments; with the best level of craftsmanship I have ever heard. The tracks all tell a separate yet connected story. The first song (if listening to the Deluxe edition, tells the story in order) It Makes No Difference Who We Are is a chorus-like composition, the introductory quoted to the left.

    Yes the lyrics can be a little confusing, possibly overly-metaphorical, however you must listen to it several times before you can get some form of idea to the meaning of the track. Klayton declines to reveal the intended meaning of most of his songs, to make it up to the listener's interpretation of the song. Personally I believe that Wish Upon a Blackstar (the entire album) is about the struggle greed brings to the world, and facing against the oppression caused by it.

    Speaking of oppression time to speak of my favorite song by Klay, Against the Tide (really almost any song); a heavily melancholy track with deep and dark imagery. It's one of those songs that you can play when feeling down to make you relate then get back up and start again. The song is composed of vocals, with some screaming (not like heavy metal screaming, very light), guitar, and awesome drumming.

    Another honorable mention from the album is the song which introduced me (technically ShutEmDown or First Person Shooter was the first time I heard of him, however those songs aren't the typical productions from Klayton as they are EDM/Dubstep absent of lyrics) to Celldweller, Eon. This song exposed me further to the metal genre (my sister showed me scremo earlier but I wasn't extremely fond of it). It flows like a common industrial metal song would with the Celldweller twist; various vocal levels, frequent electronic sounds, typically dark lyrics etc.

    All of the songs referenced in the section above are from the same album, thus contain a similar context, however he does have music completely different than the tracks directly referred to mentioned in this article.

    Now that I've shown a few of my favorite excerpts from Celldweller songs, let's talk about what these lyrics mean. Klayton refuses to reveal what his songs are referencing to (except for obvious ones like Tainted being about a girl who the world was against, not the best backstory of his songs, but the composition was excellent); instead he wants the listener to decipher the meaning so they may form their own ideas. I feel that music is something used to express your views, but Klayton appears to be using it to provoke people to build their own ideas.

    Commonly Klayton's lyrics contain references to fictional worlds particularly space (including extraterrestrial lifeforms) and time travel (look at his album covers, most of them have a Sci-Fi theme). My reasoning for this is to make his music different from all the awful music that is popular now, singing about partying, drugs, and sex (Klayton does have one song, Frozen, referring to sex, except in my opinion it was about sexual addiction). That issue plagues the music industry, why sadly I think it would take a cultural revolution for Celldweller to ever be noticed, granted he does have a massive international fanbase, however if I were to ask a random person at Walmart "Do you know who Celldweller is?" They would have no clue who I'm talking about. I get that not everyone likes the same music but the music they prefer, they have no choice over what they like. But that would be a different topic to elaborate on for another article.

    Celldweller doesn't do the Pop Culture music, yet he doesn't create music that depends on music styles that have died out several generations ago.