Height of Conception

As the Crow Flies

The debut album from Height of Conception (the solo project of Paul Riley)

Scroll

01 - About

Ancient Tracks Reborn

Height of Conception is a reincarnation of tracks from two of my long-dead bands; Built by re-generating tracks using AI.

Deplored Antiquity (~ 2001–2003)

A metalcore band I formed, fronted, and produced. The style paired high-pitched screams with deeper death-metal vocals and spoken-word passages, wrapped around classic 2000s metalcore.

Surrounded yet Fighting (~ 2003–2005)

My first solo project. Heavier on vocals, faster and catchier breakdowns, with piano, synth, and violin accents.

The recordings from both eras were rough, home-recorded, and some were unfinished.

Why "Height of Conception"

The name is a play on the idea behind the project: these songs are being born again as better versions of themselves. Every track on As the Crow Flies started as a recording from Deplored Antiquity or Surrounded yet Fighting - remastered, rebuilt, and in some cases finished for the first time.

The General Process

  1. 01 Created a "voice clone" in the model by training it on stems of my old vocal tracks. The results are similar to my original style but obviously better. The clean vocals on the tracks are complete fabrications since my vocal stems didn't contain cleans.
  2. 02 Through trial and error, I developed a style prompt for the project's sound, adjusting the featured instrument (violin, sax, piano) per song.
  3. 03 Ingested the original recordings, added my voice model + lyrics, and used my style prompt to generate each track.

02 - The Title Track

As the Crow Flies

Original artwork by Lyn Coffey, used as the basis for the As the Crow Flies album cover.
Original art by Lyn Coffey - the basis for the album cover

The only completely new song on the album. The rest are old recordings, reborn.

"As the Crow Flies" is a tribute to my sister, who passed away at 40 from a rare form of lung cancer. Crows were one of her favorite animals.

The album art is built around a piece of art my sister made.

And as the crow flies, we'll be singing for the rest of our lives, Fuck Cancer!

03 - The Album

Tracklist

Twelve tracks. Tap any song to read the story behind it and the full lyrics.

04 - Listen

Hear the album

As the Crow Flies

Check out the release page for a full list of platforms, or pick one of the more popular ones below.

Open Release Page