The beginning of our stories is not the ending. There is always time for something better.

Every album has a story behind it. Sometimes that story is bigger than the music itself.

As we approach the release of Recompense, we wanted to give ReBorn the space to tell this one in their own words.

We’ve spoken before about why we believe music matters. It can capture moments, carry memories and give us somewhere to put feelings we don’t quite know how to say out loud. For ReBorn, music became all of those things. Recompense isn’t simply a collection of tracks. It’s a journey through childhood, anger, regret, survival, love and eventually healing.

And somewhere at the heart of it is a message we think is worth holding onto:

There is always time for something better.

What follows is ReBorn’s story, in their own words.

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The beginning of our stories is not the ending

Music is a portal into the soul, a way to extrapolate feelings we don’t always know how to describe, but know how it feels. In my childhood, music was my escape from a hard childhood. It started with my first guitar, a beat up Yamaha passed down from my grandpa that I got when I was 15. It helped me to escape an abusive angry father, it helped me have a way to release pain, to feel peace in moments, to feel *good*.

As the years went on, I left creating music behind. I still had my guitar, but the reality of my situation changed me. I was angry, bitter, frustrated, and outright angry at the world I was brought into.

I sat across from my father in the courtroom, explaining everything he did to my sister, brother, and myself. That was the last time I had ever seen him, and for a long time I held the regret of breaking my family apart. In hindsight, I know this to not be true, but back then it felt so real.

I felt no control, no safety, and for a while I was a husk of myself. Music was a tool that I had used to help me express and heal, but that was now turned against me as a regret that I had abandoned.

I left my home when I was 18 years old, running away from what I knew to be an angry world, and what I found in that time from 18-22 was a world that was cruel and unforgiving. Alcohol had consumed my life, drinking at bars every weekend and trying to make friends with strangers, all from a crippling loneliness that I created for myself.

There are times today I still know I am lucky to be alive, and by all accounts with the things I witness and went through, I shouldn’t be here.

But the years didn’t stop, and soon, pain that felt like it had consumed my life had begun to lessen. It took years, looking at myself, looking at my choices, understanding that what I had been through as a child was not *my fault*, it was the course of life. Survivors guilt is a silent killer.

Family members I thought I could never have in my life still wanted me part of it, friends who cared reached out and stayed connected, and what started as what felt like, “a bad hand”, had now become more beautiful then I could ever hope to describe. I even got to meet the love of my life, who helped me heal so much of this.

There was a time where I wondered if continuing this life was worth it. My life forever changed when I realized it was. If I had taken that choice, I would never be here to witness the incredible life I get to have today.

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This album is meant to give you a glimpse of these experiences in the hopes that it can give you the same realization that I needed so long ago, *there is always time for something better*. Life is precious, even in the ugly. I had to take time to look at everything, to understand it, and to heal from it. The more I ignored it, the more it controlled my life.

There is always time for something better.

My wife and I truly believe in this message. Truly believe that there are those out there who need to hear it, and that these experiences are not a cautionary tale, but rather a hopeful sign. That things *WILL* get better.

From the ReBorns, much love, and know that not all things that start bad end bad, sometimes you get the fairy tale ending that you dreamed of. ❤️