Devoted Fusion: Ship Me To Heaven

Prepare for liftoff! Devoted Fusion returns with their most ambitious, emotionally charged upcoming release yet — Ship Me To Heaven, a genre-defying journey through celestial soundscapes, crushing riffs, and soul-baring lyricism.

When a band surpasses the difficult challenges of going from their debut to their sophomore release, it marks a pivotal chapter in their evolution. For Devoted Fusion, a progressive hard rock/metal band from Long Island, New York, this transition has been especially significant. Their debut album, Hill Valley 88, established their identity by blending progressive, hard, and classic rock influences, earning them praise and a growing fan base over the past two years. Now, as they prepare to embark on their new upcoming April 2026 album, Ship Me To Heaven, the band faces heightened expectations both internally and externally. Moving from the support of studio production on their debut to taking on the task of self-producing their second album, Devoted Fusion is navigating new creative territory. While Ship Me To Heaven has brought its share of challenges and sleepless nights, it has also led to renewed confidence—both in refining their musical abilities and in producing their own music. The process of creating Ship Me To Heaven has tested the band’s mental and emotional fortitude, presenting both doubts and breakthroughs, as well as personal fulfillment. More than just a meditation on loss and grief, Ship Me To Heaven honestly reflects on the emotional experiences of losing someone deeply important and the journey to rise above such loss. Through the personal growth they experienced during this trying phase, Devoted Fusion has seen their hopes and fears shape one of their most accomplished self-produced works to date. 

Since the release of your debut album, Devoted Fusion has undergone some lineup changes, including the addition of new drummer Brett Senzer and, more recently, bassist Anthony Tria. How have these changes affected the band’s chemistry and creative process during the making of the second album?

​Sean: The lineup has always been strong, regardless of who is in it. Everyone, from start to finish, has played a significant role in making Devoted Fusion one of the greatest and hardest-working progressive metal bands in the Long Island, New York area. After releasing our debut, changes brought new perspectives to the band. In 2024, we welcomed drummer Brett Senzer, who expanded our sonic palette by adding items like a sample pad and octobans to his drum kit. His recordings for our upcoming album, Ship Me to Heaven, have truly showcased his talent. More recently, we also welcomed bassist Anthony Tria, who brings over 15 years of experience and local live performance experience. While our former bassist, Jack DiGiacomo, contributed greatly to the recording of Ship Me to Heaven, he has since left the band but continues to support us and Anthony's role in the lineup. These transitions have introduced new creative energy and maintained the supportive spirit that defines Devoted Fusion.

​Looking back at the songwriting process for Hill Valley 88, what were the core inspirations and methods that shaped the album’s tracks? How did you approach writing songs as a band versus as individuals during that period?

​Sean: The lineup has always been strong, regardless of who is in it. Everyone, from start to finish, has played a significant role in making Devoted Fusion one of the greatest and hardest-working progressive metal bands in the Long Island, New York area. After releasing our debut, changes brought new perspectives to the band. In 2024, we welcomed drummer Brett Senzer, who expanded our sonic palette by adding items like a sample pad and octobans to his drum kit. His recordings for our upcoming album, Ship Me to Heaven, have truly showcased his talent. More recently, we also welcomed bassist Anthony Tria, who brings over 15 years of experience and local live performance experience. While our former bassist, Jack DiGiacomo, contributed greatly to the recording of Ship Me to Heaven, he has since left the band but continues to support us and Anthony's role in the lineup. These transitions have introduced new creative energy and maintained the supportive spirit that defines Devoted Fusion.

​Looking back at the songwriting process for Hill Valley 88, what were the core inspirations and methods that shaped the album’s tracks? How did you approach writing songs as a band versus as individuals during that period?

Sean: Hill Valley 88, our first full album released in 2022, underwent significant development to become a complete concept album.  One of my biggest inspirations was the movie Back to the Future.  It told so many stories, including the main storyline about traveling back in time.  When I started writing songs for Hill Valley 88, I initially just believed that writing one or two songs and releasing them would be okay.  However, as former drummer Steve Santoriello and I were writing “Standardized” (one of the tracks from the Hill Valley 88 album), it hit me that it should become more of a story instead of just one or two tracks, which is what made “Hill Valley 88” an eight-song full album.  As far as the writing process goes, though, we didn’t have our own DAW or studio setup, so when I wrote the songs in the early stages, I had to record them on a decent-quality camera or a GoPro.  That was the only way for my other bandmates to understand the stories behind the songs I was writing.  It was still a tremendous feat to accomplish it all, given the hard work we put into the album.

As you began work on Ship Me to Heaven, what specific lessons or experiences from your debut album’s songwriting did you consciously carry forward, and what did you decide to leave behind or change?

Sean: The idea of a concept album was a clear thread carried forward from Hill Valley 88 to Ship Me to Heaven, though the stories themselves greatly differ. Hill Valley 88 explores the possibility of time travel and its consequences, emphasizing that tampering with the past could impact the present or future—a lesson not always understood. In shifting focus, Ship Me to Heaven maintains a thematic connection between songs but uses the recurring word “Ship” in each title as its only playful note; the content shifts to a deeply emotional narrative. It tells the story of someone enduring a health, physical, or mental struggle who seeks support to heal before passing away. My uncle Bill, who faced lung cancer in 2014, inspired this narrative. He received the support he needed but eventually passed away, a journey that deeply informed both the album title and story. The opening track, “Inship,” sets the stage as the person is sent—reluctantly but necessarily—for urgent help, marking a transition from resistance to acceptance. Along the way, songs like “Abandon Ship” and “Shipwrecked” mark the struggle against an internal adversary and the intense battle that follows. This struggle culminates in the nine-minute title track, “Ship Me to Heaven,” with closure offered by the two-minute ending, “Membership,” which signifies peaceful acceptance. Collectively, the eight-song album offers a cleaner musical atmosphere and tells a powerful, memorable story.

Can you describe any significant changes in your approach to structuring songs on the second album? For example, did you experiment more with compositional complexity compared to your debut?

Sean: For starters, our title track, “Ship Me to Heaven,” is our longest, at nine minutes. Our goal was to work comfortably with the songs without too many time signatures. Our drummer, Brett Senzer, requested something tricky, so I humorously wrote “Battleship,” a two-minute instrumental mainly in 9/8 time. He played it super cleanly and learned it fast! Besides this, a couple of other songs use non-traditional time in some areas, but nothing too crazy. It follows a method similar to the Hill Valley 88 album.

Your vocal performance has evolved significantly since the first album, with improvements in strength, range, and confidence. What specific steps did you take to develop your voice between Hill Valley 88 and Ship Me to Heaven?

Sean: Thank you very much for the compliments on the vocals! That used to be a big problem for me before 2020, but things have improved from one album to the next. The key is confidence. I took several vocal lessons from Richard Bozic, who is an amazing vocal coach and also a Dream Theater fan. My confidence was high during Hill Valley 88’s recording, but looking back, I could have widened my vocal range more. The album was still strong, and I had good vocal balance. When I recorded “King of Equality (Re-Recording)” the next year, it felt natural since it was the same studio, but my voice was better. Now that I know my vocal range, recording at home has never felt easier. I’m pleased with the improvements. In 2025, I also took a lesson from Canadian lead singer Harley Olivia. She helped me gain more confidence in screaming vocals, which I use more on "Ship Me to Heaven" than ever before!

How did your influences evolve between the two albums? Are there new artists, genres, or personal experiences that played a larger role in shaping the songwriting for Ship Me to Heaven?

Sean: Our band has always been influenced by Dream Theater, though our technical skills aren’t as advanced. Sound quality matters to us. This album features more of my vocal screams and Brett Senzer’s complex drumming, bringing new influences. Opeth, In Flames, The Contortionist, Between The Buried And Me, and TesseracT joined the mix—some recommended by our former bassist, Jack DiGiacomo.

Were there any particular songs on the new album that challenged your usual writing process or pushed you into unfamiliar creative territory? If so, can you share the story behind one of those tracks?

Sean: The biggest challenge between “Hill Valley 88” and “Ship Me to Heaven” albums was definitely the amount of work put into them.  While working on Hill Valley 88, we recorded everything at Westfall Studios, and our amazing engineers, Anthony Lopardo and Ray Marte, handled the editing and mixing.  This was to ensure quality satisfaction with the album.  However, Ship Me to Heaven was recorded in-house, and we did not use a professional studio to record or mix it. I did all of that myself.  Brett Senzer, our current drummer, had all the tools necessary to record his drums at home with his studio program, Ableton 11, and his own drum microphones.  We then recorded his drum tracks and sent those tracks to me (Sean) to edit.  And then the mixing happened once all of the vocals, guitars, and bass were edited.  This process alone took from the middle of May in 2025 until the end of August, and I had spent every single night working on the editing process as soon as I arrived home from full-time work.  This left me with much less sleep and much less money spent on recording an album.

Looking back, having your first album recorded at Westfall Studios, with professional engineers handling mixing and mastering. I know we were talking about this in the question before. For the second album, you chose to do much of the recording, editing, and mixing in-house. What motivated this shift, and how has it affected the overall sound and workflow of the new record?

Sean: I definitely will give a ton of credit to Anthony Lopardo and Ray Marte at Westfall Studios for the incredibly hard work they put into our first album, because it is indeed a lot of hard work to pull off.  With the new album, though, financially it was the best route for us to record in our own homes.  I initially had no clue how I was going to afford another album recording, given that it was thousands of dollars, even though the quality of the work in a professional studio was vastly better than anything we could have ever asked for.  However, in 2023, I bought a DAW program on my computer called PreSonus Studio One 6, and it changed almost everything for me.  Learning this program through YouTube videos, mostly from Joe Gilder, became incredibly easy for me over the years, and it became a lot of fun to mess around with Studio One 6 and its features initially.  I then acquired a bunch of plugins from Sweetwater and Waves that were on sale during the Christmas season of that same year.  A majority of these plugins, like “Xvox”, “Decapitator”, and many more, significantly improved our studio-quality at home and saved us a ton of money by moving forward this way!  We didn’t expect our upcoming album to sound anything like what Westfall Studios did for us, but at least we made an impact by coming close to their level with our in-house hard work.

Mixing and mastering are critical in progressive metal, where clarity and power must coexist. How did you approach these stages differently on the second album, and what challenges did you encounter in achieving your desired sound?

Sean: The biggest challenge I could have expected immediately was how other people would react, especially my bandmates, to any mix or master.  When we got together for the band’s mixing meeting, I showed my bandmates, Brett and Jack, exactly what was done to achieve a proper sound across all the instruments, including the plugins.  Jack’s bass guitar went into full throttle mode mainly because I (Sean) didn’t need to worry too much about guitars pushing through or past another instrument.  The snare, kick, and bass guitars, in my opinion, were the key pieces to this mix, and were also the most difficult for me to get perfect in the same sense, while the vocals were the easiest to mix because the Xvox plugin tool that I used was designed to heavily compress the vocals.  It matters that the three of us agreed on the mix and the overall quality being significantly high for us, and that’s what matters most in any group.

Your debut album, Hill Valley 88, was a concept record centered on time travel and personal transformation. How did you approach the lyrical themes for Ship Me to Heaven? Is there a unifying concept or narrative, and if so, how does it differ from your first album?

Sean:  Ship Me to Heaven was intended to be a concept album in itself, but one of the huge benefits of the song construction and name creations was being able to have each of the eight songs have the word “Ship” in it.  This is something that I did not think about when writing “Hill Valley 88” before, and it was rather an improvement in the songwriting process.  Through all the research I've done with other bands, I haven’t come across another album yet that uses the same word for all the song names (technically).  It amazed me to complete my research successfully and create an amazing concept as well.  

Every sophomore album presents an opportunity to take risks. What were the biggest artistic risks you took on Ship Me to Heaven, and what motivated those choices? How do you see your sound evolving beyond the second album?

Sean: The biggest risk to this album was how well our production was going to be when going from a high-quality professional studio on the first album to an in-house self-recording on the second album.  The tools and plugins in PreSonus Studio One 6 were a huge learning experience for me, and I also learned Brett’s studio program, Ableton 11, on the fly.  I had to sacrifice a significant amount of free time I would normally have after work and on weekends to focus on completing this album in the shortest possible time while also prioritizing the quality of our musical work.  The improvements we made to achieve success on this album are mainly due to the amazing fans who have followed us for over 10 years now, and our amazing team, who made the completion possible for us!  We can’t wait to share “Ship Me to Heaven” with everyone who has waited so patiently for this!