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A local Medicine Hat duo released their first extended play record, The Pilgrimage, earlier this month with four songs drawing inspiration from one of their favourite childhood video games – Final Fantasy X.
Nathanael Bohnet and Re Mayer of No Hope For The Lost were previously in the band Deadlights, but after the early fallout of COVID-19 the band was down to the two of them and they decided to take the time to re-brand.
Mayer says the idea for a Final Fantasy X-themed EP was sparked at a local comic book store.
“We were kind of discussing making a concept album for a little while there and then one day I was hanging out at my local comic store, Comic Readers, and I found a stuffy of the character Yuna from Final Fantasy X and I came into studio and was pretty much like ‘hHey, you know what we can write about? Final Fantasy X,’ and everyone was like let’s do it,” he said.
Video games have always been an escape for Bohnet and he says it was a cool experience to take his experience with the game and try to reflect on them and use them in a way to create a theme for the EP.
The EP starts with a short, more calm song called “Braska” before transitioning into “Yu Yevon” where the metal genre takes over.
The EP was released on April 9 and the duo says they topped 10,000 streams on Spotify within a week.
“We’ve been getting some pretty positive words on a couple of review websites … we’re very surprised by what we’ve been getting for streams on Spotify,” said Mayer.
The band records at Bohnet’s studio in the city on Clark Crescent and they are already back in the studio preparing for another release.
“Things are catching on really quick right now and we’re realizing, especially in the internet age, there’s almost a pace and momentum that we need to keep going at and we’ve become very aware of that we just want to keep on delivering awesome tunes to people,” said Mayer.
“We have nothing but time right now, so we might as well do what we can, put our best foot forward and see what comes with it,” added Bohnet.
Bohnet says they are also excited to release a music video for their song “Jecht” which is schedule to be released between April 19 and 23 which will be available on their YouTube channel.
The Pilgrimage is available to listen to on whichever streaming platform you use.
