Victorious Combinations

We are very pleased to announce that our video for Smoke and Choke is #8 on the Totallyfuzzy.net site's Best of 2013 year end list.  It's with no small amount of pride that we join the likes of Katy Perry, Arctic Monkeys, Lorde and Die Antwoord and actually finished ahead of One Direction! We have to say another big thank you to our video's creator/director/editor/visionary Stefan Sigerson for his excellent work!  Check out the list.  there are a lot of good songs to be found (beneath our own we're proud to add!) ----- if you haven't seen the video yet you can watch it on Totallyfuzzy.net or the Boutique Empire Youtube channel. Here's to a brilliant 2014!  All the best to you, and thanks for reading! Mark

Brotherhood is a song that I started writing in response to a very dear friend taking his own life back in 2012.  Our friend Todd Simko , who I'd played in Pure with back in the nineties, and who later performed with Combine the Victorious for several shows in 2007 and 2008, left us in the spring of 2012.  His death created a disturbing wake of emotions that eventually found their way into this song. Back in January or February of 2013 I remember starting the core idea one afternoon and the song took shape quite rapidly.  The lyrics are personal but I tried to keep them open to interpretation rather than literal; it's been a sad realization that this kind of incident isn't as rare as it may seem.   The truth is all four of us: Juice, Misty, Isabelle and I were heavily affected by Todd's death, and it's been many months of processing.  We recorded this version back in the summer, on a beautiful day in Vancouver full of sunshine and laughs.  Misty is pl...