July 2025: Wrapping up the EP
Most the songs for the EP have been mostly finished. We're just trying to herd together the drummers and bassists we know to get their input on the composition and record some parts. We're also trying to start with the theming and lyrical content, researching studios, and coming up with a promotion gameplan.
Jan 2025 - July 2025: New writing begins
Time waits for no-one! This project has no tour cycle, no label demands, no nothing! There's no reason for me to wait on breathing life into new music! I've been working with a guitarist local to College Station to really turn up the "technical" part of the music.
It's been wonderful to work with someone who has similar tastes to me. We've built up quite a hefty stack of songs, and now we're truly refining them. Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm got work out there, but now I feel that there is time to really hone in on the sound and get everything
sounding just right. We at first thought that we wanted to release a full concept album, something incredibly dense, ambitious, thought provoking, and grandiose. I even wrote a whole story for the album! But we decided
that we wanted to take our time with that. Instead of jamming the songs we already had into this narrative structure, we decided to just let these songs be what they want to be (and they are magnificent)! Why waste
all of the free songwriting inspiration that is a fully fleshed out story? So, later this year, you can expect a four or five song EP with a fresh new sound and direction. Then, some time after that, we will release that full behemoth of a concept album.
Dec 2024: Mysterium Coniunctionis
I released "Mysterium Coniunctionis" in December 2024. This song was intended to be on Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm, but I ended up releasing it as a single. The song is a cover off of Behemoth's 2004 album, "Demigod". It's a track that
I think is sorely underappreciated and I wanted to take my own spin on it. I think it turned out pretty well, and I hope you enjoy it.
Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm
Aug 9, 2024
Mystechron's debut full-length album.
"One might think Chuck Schuldiner resurrected or a hologram of Dan Swanö is at work, so skillfully does Jack Bollenbacher craft melodic architectures that are at once smooth and aggressive, worthy of the greats. That sense of witnessing a “genius” in the making only intensifies knowing that "Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm" is his first album and that Jack composed every note... Listening to an album like this gives meaning to my work as a reviewer and deepens my devotion to Extreme Metal, which continually evolves and fascinates without ever wearing thin."
(Read the full review: Nightfall on Metal Earth)
May 2024: Recording Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm
Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm is the first Mystechron album. It's a truly personal thing--more like a journal. I wrote the music, lyrics, and performed all instruments and vocals (save drums). I recorded it in my bedroom on what I think is a ridiculous time scale.
The entire album, start to finish, was recorded in about two weeks: the two weeks before and after my highschool graduation. There are some things that I wished I would have done better and spent a little more time on, but this entire process was motivated by a quote from the ever infamous internet personage, Jreg:"It's never the right time to make art."
I knew that if I didn't just do it, if I labored hour after hour over every little detail after intuition had told me that what I had was cohesive, I would never finish it. So, I just did it. I recorded the whole thing in two weeks, and I am proud of it.
Dec 2023 - Mar 2024: Demos
I recorded the first two demos for Mystechron. I mixed and mastered them myself, but I had no idea what I was doing. So, I called them demos, so that if anyone pointed out their quality, I would claimt that they were still a work in progress. I knew that for the full release, I would have to come up with the money to
get my songs professionally mixed and mastered. At this point, most of Cosmic Entropic Iconoclasm was written, but I still had a lot of refining and recording ahead of me.
May 2023 - Dec 2023: The Beginning
I began treating Mystechron as a serious solo project after becoming frustrated with unmotivated bandmembers. I had been writing original compositions non-stop, but I couldn't seem to motivate anyone to contribute to my vision. I began polishing everything I had
written, and I began recording demos. The first of which, Coronzon, released in December 2023, was a major turning point for me. I realized that I could do this myself, and I began to take the project seriously.