BAND NEWS
Band is currently reforming. Updates will come every so often.
Pat Clarke has rejoined on drums.
Vocalists please contact Jon Norberg, Jim Greco, or Mike Harvey
New Release Coming After The Holidays....
IN THE MEANTIME:
Check out Mike's band featuring ex-members of Ascendant... www.myspace.com/portraitofstructure
Check out Jon's other current band Arctic Flame:
www.arcticflamemetal.com
LINKS
Ascendant at Garageband.com
ASCENDANT BIO
The history of what has become known as Ascendant begins in 2002. Bassist Jon Norberg (who also resides in New Jersey traditional metal band Arctic Flame) and Ryan Halasz (now of central jersey grindcore/deathmetal/gore-groove band South Street) met in high school and became friends instantly, talking about music and heavy metal. For 2 years, Jon and Ryan jammed together playing with multiple people other musicians. In 2004, Mike Harvey (Also in funk/prog band Portrait of Structure that he formed after Ascendant's demise in 2005) joined the duo. The three started writing music and for three or four months played. An early version of what would become known as the Halcyon began to take shape in these early sessions however a full song would not be put together until nearly six months later.
Creative differences eventually intervenes and Ryan struck out on his own heading in a more extreme direction with Jon and Mike sticking to their thrash roots. Together Jon and Mike completed the Halcyon which, as one metal fan described in a review on Metal-Archives.com, was described as "First song, The Halcyon. This song is pure thrash."
Ashish Wagh (also played in Portrait of Structure) joined soon after and more songs including a nine minute song entitled Life Cycles (no relation to the Watchtower classic) and a mellow song titled Forgotten Fields were also completed. Ashish brought to the band a more melodic sensibility while retaining the heaviness. A perfect example of this can be seen in Napoleon. A melodic intro leads into a ridiculously fast, Iced Earth inspired thrash attack followed by a Symbolic-era Death type riff which helps conclude the song.
It was at this point the summer of 2004, and now that drummer Pat Clarke (who also played in Portrait of Structure) joined the band. With a drummer now behind the kit... Chaos ensued. The Halcyon and Napoleon now morphed into solid metal songs, with The Halcyon being played faster and faster at every practice. New song Six, slowly came into being and included more time changes and a short acoustic section that erupted into a solo-section unlike anything the band had done before.
The band played their first show on March 11th 2005 after several more months of rehearsing. The show proved to be a huge success with a lot of people coming to see the high school's only metal band. Ascendant, of course, slayed with audience members headbanging and other musicians left slack-jawed and the musicianship. Next show was the High School lock-in, which afforded Ascendant a longer set with more room to play. Playing two covers, Rush's YYZ and Motorhead's Ace Of Spades Ascendant pummeled the audience with more solid metal fury. Ace of Spades also saw the first, and last to date, performance with vocals. New song, Masada Fortress also saw its first public appearance.
In the summer of 2005, the band started to disintegrate slightly with influences starting to take stronger hold and songs becoming more progressive and less metal. During this time, a 5 song Demo was recorded with a live recording of the Masada Fortress also included. This was distributed to close friends only with no local or worldwide distribution. Mike and Jon left for college soon after with the thought of keeping the band going however this was not to be the case. Ascendant officially disbanded in the winter of 2005.
As 2007 crept up however, a new wind began to blow. Jon Norberg decided to start writing some more material and enlisted the help of old friend Jim Greco to play guitar. Seeing that a break may have helped the band, Jon and Mike decided to give Ascendant another go minus Ashish. Pat Clarke also once again volunteered on drums. As 2007 comes closer, and three brand new songs and one un-released song - The Masada Fotress - are finished a second demo will see the light and Ascendant will once more bring metal to the masses.
Early April 2007 called for a change in the lineup. We called upon Christian who filled in for Mike Harvey at a past gig to fill in the spot and he said "HELL YEAH!." Possibly a complete lineup soon...
"Ascendant, long time new jersey progressive thrash outfit, recently recruited a new member on the electric guitar. He claims to have been reincarnated several times using the bizarre and evil riff wizardry that he developed through agonizing intense rituals of pain and misery. As a result, however, he is here to unleash his deviled techniques against metal and all of mankind. All that we know as life and the metal scene must prepare for a rude awakening and possibly even an end to their existence" - Source Unknown
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