Welcome to a feature where we sit down and talk to bands and artists about their latest albums to find out all about it. Today we speak to Elvis from Stone Sea to find out about the album Ad Astra

Hello nice to meet you, tell us about yourself?

Sure, I’m Elvis, songwriter, guitarist, and vocalist behind Stone Sea. I write heavy, emotional music as a way to understand myself and the world around me. Music, for me, is about digging into something real and uncomfortable.

Tell us about the new album?

Ad Astra is a collection of songs written across many years and countries. It deals with inner conflict, transformation, responsibility, and the bigger cycles of existence. Each track captures a different state of mind, but together they form a journey—from personal struggle to a wider, almost cosmic perspective, which is how we close the album with the song Ad Astra.Favourite

Favourite track in new album and why?

Right now, Age of Tears. It represents decay and the acceptance of it as a necessary step toward growth. It’s a very personal song lyrically, and musically it’s the heaviest track we’ve recorded to date.

Tell us a bit about the recording process, was it fun to do?

It was intense, but very rewarding. The songs were written over years, recorded in Ireland, and later brought to life live in Spain with a new lineup. There was pressure, as I was moving to Spain for a new job and had only two weeks to record the songs with Connor (the previous drummer), while also organising the move with my partner and our two cats in a 7.5m van across the countries—but hearing the songs finally finished made it all worth it. We’re very excited to share it.What

What inspired the album name?

Ad Astra comes from the final track and sums up the album’s themes: struggle, change, and transcendence. It’s about moving through inner and outer chaos toward something broader—without pretending there’s a final answer.Tell

Tell us the idea behind the album cover?

The album cover reflects those ideas, mixed with the band’s name. The waves represent chaos and everything happening around us, and as they hit the stone, faces are carved out of it little by little. The stone being lifted out of the sea represents the mark we leave after we pass away. Jacinto Roselli did an astonishing job capturing all of that.

What one of your songs on the new album do you think will the most difficult to rehearse for a live audience?

I’d say Alien is quite hard to nail perfectly because of its various shifts. For me personally, Left to Be is also tricky, mainly because the guitar uses a unique tuning that’s only used for that song. If it’s played between two others, I have to retune or change guitars before and after—and keeping people entertained while doing that is the tricky part (laughs).

Why should people listen to the album?

If you’re into heavy music with multiple shifts in energy and texture, Ad Astra offers a full journey rather than just isolated tracks.

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