By Zach Collier
Christian Degn Petersen is an illustrator and musician from Provo, Utah. Working particularly with black and white inks, his signature style is heavy on skeletons, outer space, and robots. It makes incredible use of negative space with mind-bending results.
He’s done a lot of artwork for hardcore, death metal, and doom metal acts. Bands like Alto Arc, Pallbearer, Yob, Inter Arma, Yellow Eyes, Locrian, and Black Wing have all embraced his unique style. Local acts like Little Moon, Temples, and 20 Stories Falling have also worked with him, and his pieces made an appearance in Holy Hell, The ARCH-HIVE’s inaugural exhibition in downtown Provo.
His significant artistic talents and years of experience working with other musicians has given his own metal project, Moray, a really unique edge. Moray is best described as death metal energy draped over a triumphant black metal frame. While it occasionally takes a more traditional metal approach, Moray’s excellent grasp of guitar tone and music theory allows hauntingly beautiful melodies to cut through the noise.
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The music is phenomenally crafted, but it’s more than just well-executed metal. Moray’s first full length album, The Natural World, tells a comprehensive story across a variety of mediums, both aural and optical.
“This album is a story woven through drawings on paper, a solar eclipse, the printing press, dreams of a dead artist, the birth of a litter of cats, a religious man’s crops dying, empty night skies and the lives held beneath them,” explains Petersen.
He describes the A side of the album as spring and summer, and the B side as a somber autumn and winter. Dividing these sides at its center is the track “Deluge,” written and performed by Benjamin Swisher of Sen Wisher, who also performs banjos on the track “Empty Sky.”
The marriage of his two primary art forms is significant for Petersen, who suffered a spontaneous lung collapse in 2020. “I assumed I would never be able to do vocals again,” he says. “I spent a week in bed mourning unrecorded songs, settling into a life where my main form of artistic expression would be relegated to a solely visual output.”
A year of recovery later, he found himself in contact with drummer Robin Stone from the bands Convulsing and The Amenta. “I could feel these songs demanding to be realized as I began to slowly push my voice back to where it had been,” he says. Over time, his voice returned to where it was on his last release, the 2017 EP Temporal Majesty.
Petersen began writing and recording in earnest. “I received instrumental contributions from Benjamin Swisher, which served to further temper the melancholic and introspective pieces these songs were growing into,” he says. Between 2021 and 2023 he recorded and re-recorded each track, periodically meeting with engineer and producer Randy Cordner of the Utah band Temples. They met at Beast Mansion studio. “He ensured that these recordings would all be able to reach their fullest form.”
Two singles from the upcoming LP have already been released: “The Sun” and “Pantocrator.” The Natural World will be released digitally on August 4, 2023. There are plans for a future physical release.
In the meantime, make sure you follow Moray on Instagram. You can listen to “The Sun” below.
Provo Music Magazine 
2 replies on “Sing Until Your Lungs Give Out: Christian Degn Petersen”
[…] a week in bed mourning unrecorded songs,” Moray’s guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, and vocalist said to Provo Music Magazine about his lung collapsing, “settling into a life where my main form of artistic expression would […]
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[…] to Citizen Soldier’s incredible story, their generous support will help spread the word about Moray’s amazing recovery from a spontaneous lung collapse and his intricate black and white ar…; NPR’s nationally-distributed series all about the Provo music scene; plus an abundance of […]
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