Description
SONGS SYNOPSIS:
- THROW IT BACK (6:15): This song serves as the model for all the other improvs: the quiet start, the chord and scale-rich development, and the recapitulation set the theme for the album.
- BUILT UP (6:21): Exactly as the name says. The motif of the first 45 seconds is just golden, and then it pans out into a rich landscape of scale.
- BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS (5:06): The shortest song of the album. I intentionally kept away from more exotic keys to keep the melody obvious. Picture the song as if you’re actually walking that lonely road.
- AFTER ALL (16:07): The first musical epic! It keeps a strong rhythmic march while the melody climbs up increasing levels of complication.
- THE WAY I DO (10:33): This song turns the base melody inside out, into a very passionate and “lost-sounding” theme, as if standing atop a mountain looking for hope in the desolation surrounding you.
- ALL THE LIGHTS (27:40): The second musical epic. Here the base song is spread into slow arpeggios, broken, and semi-broken chords, fusing the desperation of the base melody with something almost serene. Think of wandering under the stars at night in a slightly magical forest.
- WALK THAT ROAD (7:18): This song takes two themes, one inside the other: a main, staccato-heavy one, and the more classic flowing scale one. The slow transition between the two defines the song.
- I DON’T BELIEVE (9:51): The most landscape-y sounding piece of the album, as if it was the background to a bird’s eye over a landscape in a movie. The basic key (D minor) pushes that feel to the max.
- BALLAD OF THE WALL AND THE ROAD (32:23): The third and greatest musical epic. There’s a place for every theme and feel in this song, from slow scales to fast marches to even a few sections of dissonance. I consider it a novel, written in notes instead of words.
- MIRUS MURUS (9:47): The title is Latin for “wonderful wall,” and it’s the song that inspired All the Lights. However, I think the extreme lyrical richness and depth of the chords in this song makes it the better of the two – in fact, I think it’s my favorite of the songs in the album.
- FIRE IN THE HEART (18:01): The fourth musical epic. Similar in idea to Throw It Back, but longer, slower, and with more of my signature chords and scales.




