News: Dreams Over Texas Releases New Doom Track ‘The Tedious and Tasteless Hours’
There is a certain kind of heaviness that does not need to announce itself. It does not arrive through spectacle. It does not depend on volume alone. Sometimes it comes through age, memory, sorrow, and the simple recognition that human frailty has always been with us. That is the atmosphere surrounding “The Tedious and Tasteless Hours,” the new doom metal track from Dreams Over Texas.
The song brings together Doug Van Pelt (Heaven’s Metal Magazine, Lust Control) and Seth Metoyer in a collaboration rooted as much in reflection as in sound. At the center of the piece is a remarkable poem written in 1890 by Doug’s great-great-grandfather, Hiram Van Pelt. Written when Hiram was near 80 and totally blind, the poem carries an emotional gravity that feels lived rather than imagined. Its words speak with striking honesty about aging, frailty, and the loss of eyesight, giving the track a depth that reaches far beyond mood alone.
There is also a fitting sense of history behind the project itself. Dreams Over Texas began as a high school vision Doug held onto for years before it finally found its way into recorded form. Some ideas disappear with time. Others remain quietly in the background until the right collaborators and the right season allow them to take shape. This track feels like the latter.
Metoyer collaborated with Doug on the songwriting and structure of the piece while contributing traditional guitars, keyboards, drum programming, and layered vocal arrangements. Kris Olson adds bass, helping anchor the song with the kind of weight doom metal demands when it is serving substance instead of simply chasing atmosphere. Together, the team aimed to honor the burden of the material without overworking it or forcing it into something more dramatic than it already was.
That restraint is part of what gives “The Tedious and Tasteless Hours” its strength. It does not overstate its sorrow. It does not reach for theatrical despair. It simply lingers in the hard truth of decline and limitation. In doing so, it becomes a reminder of something most people spend their lives trying not to name: our time here is brief, our bodies are fragile, and even the gifts we take for granted can slip away.
For a genre often at its best when it stares directly into mortality, this is a natural fit. The song draws from an older voice, yet it feels painfully current. Its sadness does not come across as borrowed mood or artistic affectation. It feels inherited. It feels earned.
“The Tedious and Tasteless Hours” is now available on Spotify and YouTube, with additional streaming platforms to follow. Give it a listen.
Poem and Lyrics by Hiram Van Pelt
(near 80 and totally blind – 1890)
How tedious and tasteless the hours,
When the organ of sight cannot see;
Sweet prospects, sweet birds and sweet flowers,
That once were so pleasing to me.
How dreary and dark in old age,
When eye sight no longer can see;
To read not one line on a page,
That others have written to me.
The mid Summer sun shines but dim,
All nature seems on the decay;
All pleasure is banished from him,
Whose midnight must last the day.
Oh, God, if indeed I am thine,
If thou canst give sight and give song;
Say, why do I languish and pine,
And why are my midnights so long.
Oh, drive these dark clouds from my eyes,
And the blessing of eyesight restore;
Or take me to thee on high,
Where blindness is heard of no more.
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