Five years ago today, I produced my first original song! Five years ago, I sold my soul and declared music to be my profession. And, five years ago (in May), I made my Newgrounds page. Ten days from now, it will be five years since I posted my first song on this page. In short, five years have gone by... where the hell did the time go?

There have been several ups and downs for my music (OGs who have been watching my progression will remember the dreaded 2017 incident... still really sorry about that, by the way. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's best you keep it that way). I was given a slap on the wrist because I didn't read the audio rules properly (whoops, really should have read the rules properly). And my style has developed so far from where I started that I really am amazed that I was responsible for and wrote some of my older stuff.

I tried many different things and went through many different phases, but I'm hoping the phase I'm currently in, music-wise, is the last one. Who knows? Only time will tell!

I don't really have a reason to post this. I just felt obligated to make a post, what with five years having passed. Just know that I'm not going to stop making music any time soon. I still have several ideas floating around (I STILL NEED TO POST THE CHARACTER THEME RELATED TO ONE'S DARKNESS GODDAMMIT!), and I don't think I'll lose my spark anytime soon...

Anyway, best and take care!

~Zach (AlphaStorm)

Hey everyone! It's been a hot minute since I posted anything here. That's neither here nor there, I have music incoming! When I've had free time from YouTube and college, I've been writing original song ideas. When you're reading this, you've probably already seen the first of my ideas. That song was designed to establish some motifs. I have other songs that will do the same, and then reuse others.

These will be a series of songs that will kind of be what I would have written if I were given the task to write music for a video game of some capacity. Dark Heart was what I imagined as a boss battle theme, even if I said I wasn't necessarily thinking that way while writing it. As it were, the "boss battle" theme was in the back of my mind while I was writing it. I will also say, I'm not going to make too many. There will be a few character themes, area themes, battle themes, and a credits theme. That's it. I know some video game soundtracks are often hundreds of tracks, so I'm limiting myself.

Anyway, keep an eye out for new music, because I've got quite a few ideas I'll be releasing over the next little while. I'm not going to allow for any consistency, just when I have a song finished, I'll release it.

Best and take care!

~Zach (AlphaStorm)

Hey everyone! Hope you're all doing well and enjoying the parts of my first full length metal concept album! From when I'm posting this, it will be available in about fourteen hours' time on all digital services. I will admit, it certainly could have been stronger, but I think it only suffered just because of how many songs it included. I've pretty much never found an album that has 12 full length songs that hasn't had a few meh points. Of course, I'm only going to get better as time goes on. Maybe I'll try and revisit Zodiac someday, in some capacity.

Also, today is my birthday! One more year older, and one year closer to death. For multiple reasons, mainly privacy, I won't say my age, even though in various places on the internet, you can actually find what my exact age is.

Finally though, and most importantly, Pisces became my first song to reach front page! I think anyway. I mean, I've had songs get into the thousands of listens and get featured and not reach front page, but it's always possible I missed something. Even so, the fact that Pisces got Frontpaged at all is entirely why I'm posting this at such a dead hour of night for me when I should be sleeping. So, whatever qualities Pisces possessed for it to get Frontpage, I am honoured and happy about it!

Thank you for all the support you showed on all the songs for Zodiac! It's been a real dream come true. I've been trying to make a full length heavy metal album for three years, so the fact I finally got good enough at recording to make something half-way decent that people seem to have enjoyed, as I said, is a real dream come true. My past projects like this have focused on one genre or theme, which fell through due to my inexperience or just unforeseen factors, but this didn't have an underlying theme except being based around the Zodiac star signs and was an independent album.

I hope you've enjoyed listening to Zodiac as much as I did making it! Unfortunately for me for now, this may be the last time I post with any amount of consistency on Newgrounds, as I don't have any stockpiled original songs. I want to make my Newgrounds page exclusively original stuff (with the exception of my Sonic Blaster remix), so, whenever I have a finished product later down the line, I'll be sure to release it here! In the meantime, my metal covers of video game songs will continue starting on Sunday of next week at 2 P.M. PST on YouTube, so if you want to hear more of my playing, head over to my YouTube page and keep an eye out every Sunday!

I wish you all the best, and I love you all! Take care!

~Zach (AlphaStorm)

2020 is a thing that happened... and I'm not alone in many ways of wishing it didn't. A year that began with naive and delusion optimism turned into something filled with pessimism. It's hard to say that this year was good, because it wasn't, but it's hard to say it was all bad.

The mental downsides of being locked at home brought with them their own highlights. I don't think as much art as was created this year would have happened if we hadn't been locked. Not to say that it wouldn't exist at all, but rather, lock down meant there was so much less to do that rather than do nothing, people turned to their art forms or tried new ones. There was more of an incentive to fight boredom by starting a new hobby than there was in any previous year.

Of course, I was pretty silent this year. There was a significant lack of music, on here specifically. YouTube has been my primary focus, as I upload almost exclusively covers over there, and I'd much rather make NewGrounds almost exclusively for original stuff. But I did upload stuff, obviously. A number of original tunes, mainly metal music. Also uploading parts for my Zodiac album, which will be continuing to upload on Saturdays, unless I'm a big dummy and forget to.

I also have tonnes of ideas I've been wanting to get out. I have an entire album I need to figure out, mainly for its vocal parts. And tonnes of other original songs floating around in my head.

If you want to know how my YouTube stuff went for 2020, properly, you can go over to here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FaZTfGkyuk. This is my retrospective of my channel in 2020, so if anything outside of NewGrounds for my stuff interests you, you can head over there to find out how my channel has been doing.

I don't really have a lot to say, but I hope, given the circumstances, this year was as good as it could have been! It could have been a whole lot better but, it is what it is, and I hope you all had some creative growth!

Best and take care!

~Zach (AlphaStorm)

Hello, everyone! It's been a little bit! Hope you've all be well!

I'll just cut to the chase, I'm beginning work on a new album. It's a bit of a continuation of Sagittarius, but more in the sense Sagittarius is now being put on an album and the version here on NewGrounds will be going away for a bit in a little while. Or at least, it will be updated to fit in with the fact it is going to be an outdated track soon. Anyway, this album is called Zodiac and has songs named after the twelve signs in the Zodiac.

The album I've planned for a March 7th release, due to that being my birthday, and the fact that the way I'm setting this up, Pisces will be the last song, and that's my star sign. I'm actually only recording this far in advance since I want to be able to focus more on my YouTube content, all my video game covers and stuff, rather than be writing songs in a rush before the album releases. So, as such it's all being recorded very far in advance. I'm also going to be releasing music videos for each song, one week apart from each other for twelve weeks starting on December 19th.

Now, the only reason I'm saying any of this here is that I'll be going live on Twitch with the recording every Monday at roughly 1 P.M. PST over at twitch.tv/alphastorm73. I will likely announce that I'll be going live between 10 and 20 minutes before I do go live, or at least 10 minutes before I start working on any part in any way. This is subject to change, but at the very least I will try to announce when I'm going live. And the main production, including drum and synth/string arrangement, and recording the main guitar and bass parts. Post production stuff is something I'd prefer to do on my own.

Anyway, I hope to see you there! I'm excited for how this album is going to turn out!

Best to you, and take care!

~Zach (AlphaStorm)

Hey all, it's been a minute since I last did anything major on here. Shit happens, been working on some stuff, and been doing some personal life stuff, etc. etc. But, I'm back and might be doing some more music stuff on here. Of course, I said might. I've completely changed my sound and what kind of music I focus on. I no longer do EDM stuff as much as I used to, I've been writing more Metal and even have an album I'm working on at the moment. And, I've been working a whole lot on my YouTube channel, where I've been uploading metal covers of mostly video game songs. I've been doing a lot of stuff, and, while I was doing all that (and for certain other reasons), NewGrounds had to take a bit of a backseat. And, while I have been working on all this stuff, I don't know if I will be able to upload with any consistency on here.

Anyway, point being, I'm back, I've got some more music projects I've been working on that I'm super excited to share. It won't be EDM stuff as much as things were since 2016. Currently am writing lyrics and recording vocals for a song, and I've got another which I had at one point released, but took down due to a number of reasons that I won't get into until I release the song. Also, Chorus of the Dragons had to be taken down... sorry. Reason being, I've put it on the album I'm working on and the recording sounds drastically different to the way it did when it was up here.

Well, that's all I have to say, at the moment. That other track I was talking about is going to be released sometime this week (maybe even today if I remix and remaster it fully by the end of the day). It will be an EDM song, but after that, I will most likely be sticking to Metal tracks, maybe with an occasional EDM piece here and there. That has the possibility of changing at some point, so I'm not making promises.

Anyway, thank you for reading!

Take care!

~AlphaStorm

[The Angry Part]: I swear, I'm trying not to lose my goddamn mind, but it's REALLY fucking difficult. I have said time and time again, MANY A TIME IN RESPONSE TO REVIEWS I GET, that I do NOT want to be associated with Geometry Dash IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM! I was expecting to still get reviews about the game after that, but it doesn't stop me from almost deleting all of my audio and uploading it somewhere else to make sure I do not have to deal with this anymore. It's so annoying! What's unfortunate is that I can't say reviews about the game are bad, because the same could be said about reviews that simply say 'cool'. Single word reviews are just as useless as reviews praising a level in GD and saying you're going to use a song in GD. My problems with such reviews are that I want to improve, but when I get reviews from people saying they're gonna use a song I wrote, or a remix I produced, in a video game, it's heartbreaking in a way, especially when there are people on this website that do really well with reviews and do genuinely help, but they are few and far between. I hate having to deal with it all the time. And I can't go through all my audio and remove the External API use because I have 170+ songs, which doesn't sound like much, but it takes a ridiculous amount of time to update all my audio like that, time I don't have.

[The Solemn Part]: Sorry, I just needed to vent a little. I've played the game, I know what it's like. It has turned countless great musicians into 'Geometry Dash Musicians', something I do not want to become. It's why I've become a secondary Xtrullor figure, in a lesser degree. I have aspirations, and having my music used in Geometry Dash specifically isn't one of them. I want to be in several games. I want to be known as a solo musician and a video game music composer. I do not want to be confined to one thing, or one title. I admit that I have done countless covers and remixes, I'm sure most of my music is covers, remixes or remasters of songs at this point, but I want to try harder to make original music. But it's hard, because whenever I create something I'm truly proud of that I poured my life and time into to make sure it's perfect, most of my followers are here largely for or because of my remixes of songs. And, that's my fault for doing so many remixes, I know, but it's fun to create your own spin on other people's music, I'm sure that's why they came into existence. I just need to try harder to make original music, and not spend so much time on remixes. And trust me, I have been. I have several projects in the works right now, none of which are remixes.

[What I Have Planned]: I have things planned out and here's what I have; I'm going to be taking a break from music and the internet as a whole for a couple of days. And note this means I will not be active on any of my accounts, but I will use the internet to entertain because I don't have anything outside of the internet to entertain. The only things I'm going to use the internet for are YouTube videos that have no controversy around them, my schooling (because I do online school), listening to music, and uploading one more video before I go on a break. Now, how long it will take, I'm not entirely sure, but once I come back with a fresh mind, I will release something original. Whatever it may be. But it will NOT be a remix, that's all I know. I also, as of writing this, have plans to release EVERY song I've made and uploaded here on my YouTube channel, one every week, set for Wednesday's at 2 P.M. Pacific Standard Time. There will be notifications from me every week. 170 Weeks of uploads, or thereabouts is going to be fun.

[Final Word]: So, I guess this is going to be it for now from me. Thanks to those who read and understood my word. I'll be back strong in about a weeks time.

Take care!

~AlphaStorm

 Name update: AlphaStorm73