When I was a child, my first contact with Shakespeare’s plays was through an animated series. I got the bare essentials. Hamlet avenges his father. Too much love, ultimately, dooms Juliet. And Scotland is a place of wickedness and mystery.
It must’ve had an effect. I don’t go on social media much. But I do have a habit of skimming through books until I’m satisfied with the information. I read the headlines in the daily gazette for my news. And sometimes I expect a pop song to school me on life’s biggest questions.
My “Montezuma” EP is a pop record and history lesson, albeit not a detailed or preachy one. Rock music’s supposed to thrill, not make you reach for a pencil to take notes.
Nominally, yes, this 4-song EP is a concept record about the fall of the ninth Aztec monarch, the one who had turned his kingdom into an Empire and who lost it at the hands, and because of the rifles, of greedy Europeans.
Truthfully, it was actually inspired by my travels further south, into Guatemala and Peru, and the knowledge that contemporaries of the Aztecs, such as the Mayans, are still living off the land, honouring their traditions and, in many ways, thriving.
“Montezuma” is as much a bite-sized history lesson as it’s a meditation on greed for greed’s sake in an era where it surely feels like all of us are in the ownership of giant corporations and quasi-totalitarian regimes that support them.
It’s also a thought on the art of resistance and on the beauty of survival. Did the Aztecs crumble and fall? History tells us this. But history’s lens is shut off just as soon as the blood stops spilling. Meanwhile, flowers bloom, people grow, and Mother Earth takes care of its own.
What style is the EP? I should know, right, given my background as a music writer. It’s a composite of alternative rock, psychedelia, with traces of punk and singer-songwriter material. I sing, and I yell. I punch through guitar riffs, but also lengthy solos.
The first single “In Spaceships They Come” touches on the meeting between the Spaniards and the Aztecs, and the desire of the faithful to meet and to honour their Gods.
“Stampede of Light” is a psych-rock track about this world, the afterlife and the connection that ancient peoples always maintained with both.
The title track, “Montezuma,” is the EP’s 7-minute prog-epic. It’s a song that both tells the aforementioned story, as well as analyses the nature of greed. What does it lead to? And who among those who practice it has survived to tell the tale?
But, when speaking of survival, we have to turn our attention again to the true faithful. “We’re Still Here” is a punk-inspired song of two parts. The first paints a picture of war and devastation. The latter tells of stubbornness and unwillingness to give up, or have one’s story mistold.
I wrote all the songs, sang, performed all the instruments, and, to the best of my humble abilities, produced and mixed the “Montezuma” EP. I’m happy because they’re four good songs. But I am especially pleased with the lesson I’ve been taught: The faithful never truly perish!
The “Montezuma” EP is released on 19th August, 2026 on Alt77 Music.
