The Age of Hybrid Metal Has Begun

Dear friends of heavy guitars,

my band Black Jade has existed since 1999, and I have been actively making music since 1990. I have spent countless hours in recording studios, long before recording became digital. Back then, we recorded on cassette tapes. Every cut was a challenge, every edit a careful decision. Today we still laugh about those experiences, but they shaped us deeply and taught us patience, focus, and respect for the craft.

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Then music production became digital. Suddenly you could edit comfortably on a computer, add effects with a single click, and work far more efficiently. Things became so accessible that I was able to build my own studio. In those days, guitars were still pushed through real amps, microphones were carefully positioned, and the perfect spot was searched for with patience and intuition. Later, the amps and cabinets moved into the basement, because plugins arrived that could simulate all of it. Instead of one amp, you suddenly had access to countless brands and models, and you could find exactly the sound you wanted for each album.

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The drums were dismantled and replaced by drum machines. At first they sounded stiff, but the technology improved rapidly. Today, it is often hard to hear the difference between a digital drum set and a real drummer – except that the digital one sometimes sounds even more precise. Digital bass instruments followed. Then online mastering services appeared, offering professional quality for a fraction of the time and cost that studio mastering once required.

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The next step was the arrival of the first AI plugins for home studios. The very first one I bought was an AI mastering plugin. Suddenly, I could master my songs at the highest level without investing huge amounts of time or money. What a gain. Then came AI-based voice processing. I could transform my voice into almost any imaginable voice, clearer, stronger, more professional, at the push of a button. Backing vocals became much easier to create, ideas could finally be realised.

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And then came the next leap: AI that could not only master tracks or manipulate voices, but actually write entire songs. At the push of a button. I tested a lot and was genuinely amazed. Eventually, I decided to upload an old song, Gurthang, and create a new version of it. It took a moment for the AI to understand what I wanted, but with some practice, a demo song from the year 2000 turned into a modern version that fulfilled all my expectations. In that moment, something shifted for me: I realised that I was not becoming less of a musician through this process, but more free to focus on ideas, emotion, and expression.

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I realised this was a concept worth exploring further. So I took more old songs and did the same. The AI followed my arrangements, wrapped the old songs in a new sonic garment. Fantastic. An enormous amount of fun. The paradox was that the songs released this way were heard more often in half a day than everything I had produced over the previous twenty years combined. Feedback exploded. Interview requests and concert inquiries followed. Surprising? Yes, very much so – even though the songs truly turned out great. Success came through reimagining old material.

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That made me think about what could grow from this. I wrote emails to friends and asked them: let’s create some songs together – fantasy metal, genre-wide, with female vocals. Everyone quickly pulled song ideas out of their sleeves. I developed rough versions with guitar and drums, uncut and unpolished, simply outlining the arrangements. The others did the same: some with keyboards, some only with guitar, others with a single vocal track carrying the main melody.

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I could hardly keep up with writing lyrics. I spent hours on them, choosing the right musical draft for each text. The selection was huge – around forty song ideas stored on my computer. Some were three to four minutes long and carefully shaped, others short and reduced to their core ideas. One after another, I fed them to the AI, always with a carefully written prompt. And from rough, unpolished stones, shining jewels emerged.

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Soon we had a large collection of strong songs, and everyone involved was amazed by the quality and by how precisely the AI followed our pre-production ideas. This is how Where Silence Speaks came into being: a hybrid album whose ideas and foundations were developed and recorded in the studio, but whose final execution and realisation were created with the help of AI. We call it “Hybrid” – a fitting term, standing for 50% human and 50% artistic intelligence. For us, this is not about replacing creativity, but about consciously choosing a path between extremes: neither rejecting new tools out of nostalgia, nor surrendering authorship to technology.

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Where Silence Speaks and Elbereth’s Grace have reached listeners all around the world with this hybrid music. It is an album with a message: positive, bright, and clearly positioned. Music that aims to be more than just worth listening to. AI already plays an important role in all areas of our lives, and its importance will continue to grow. Whether we like it or not is ultimately beside the point.

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We want to show that, when used thoughtfully and responsibly, AI can lead to meaningful, respectful, and powerful results. We love our hybrid metal sound, and we will continue on this path with Elbereth’s Grace, delivering new, powerful songs with deep and thoughtful lyrics. We want to present this journey transparently and openly, to reduce prejudice and fear.

Since then, I have been making more music than ever before. I suddenly play guitar every day again, sit in the studio, and build new ideas. I have been a musician for over thirty years, have spent thousands of hours in studios and on stages, and yes – I genuinely love this new technology. For me, it is not “either–or”. It is “also”. It is an enrichment, and I approach it with a very positive attitude and genuine joy.

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I invite listeners, fellow musicians, the curious, and even the sceptical to walk this path with me, with us, who bring these songs to life together – a path into a future that does not have to be driven by fear or anger, but can be filled with creativity, openness, and joy.

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With kind regards,
Andy