What exactly happened with the album after we had finished recording still remains unclear. A certain studio engineer had ceased contact with us for quite a while. We were able to eventually track him down in the winter. We requested a sample of the album, which he claimed was “almost done.” He gave us an mp3 of “Into the Primordial.” Without going into detail, it was very clear to us that we needed to take the album to work on it ourselves. After another couple of months without contact, we were eventually able to get our tracks to work on at our new studio, which we have dubbed The Halls of Glory.
In late May 2007, work began anew on the album. I weeded through what was already done and decided what needed to be fixed. (For instance, somehow one of the guitars *coughGreg’scough* was very slightly out of tune with the rest of the instruments. Also, any mention of “Sarnath” being too slow has been laid to rest.) June was spent adding additional guitars to the mix and rerecording all the clean and acoustic guitars. The bass was also in need of a makeover. By the time July came around, we were ready to retrack every vocal on the album. We had planned on bringing back our original singer, Brian, to do the vocals on this album, but apparently, he and our former studio engineer are on the same cell phone plan. Greg once again stepped up. As a result of retracking Greg’s original vocals, we have a far better vocal performance on the album, as well as vastly more choir-type choruses and background vocals than were originally there.
The recording process in The Halls of Glory was somewhat uneventful. No cameras were involved, unfortunately. Dave and I spent many nights contemplating over chalices of ale over the minutiae that goes into an album. Dave performed keyboards, which we hadn’t had a chance to do at the previous studio. “Wings Over Asgård” has mighty choirs and horn sections now. The additional clean guitar tracks were done somewhat quickly. I did them while no one else was here and during the calmest morning of the week so that I could be as focused as possible. Later that day, a thunderstorm rolled in. I dropped what I had been doing so I could record its epic thunderclaps. That’s right. Thor himself has been included on the album. Greg laid down his additional rhythm guitar tracks with very little ado. Aaron, still somewhat new to the band, recorded the songs he knew. In the interests of time, I went ahead and played bass on the two tracks he didn’t. Some of Matt’s original fills were retained. Then came the vocal tracks. We tried several things to get the best sound out of Greg this time around. First he stood in front of the mic as if he had just slain a Persian, like in 300. Then he tried singing while holding a guitar of steel. But then we had figured it out. Greg sang nearly all the vocals with one foot up, as if standing on the prow of a Viking ship, and holding a sword. No joke.
In all, I feel we owe the fans an apology for the continued delays in releasing this album. We have finally now, in late July, arrived at a point where there is little more we can do to make the album more amazing without greatly increasing our budget (which we have already exceeded).
I’m sure you are wondering what we might have been doing in the time we had no album and no shows. Aside from bringing our new bassist, Aaron El-Zeftawy, up to speed, we have completed about 5 of the 9 songs for the follow up album. Provided this first album sells well, we will have a much bigger budget for the next one and the result will be as epic as the songs themselves. For now, the epicness of our songs tends to exceed our means. Worry not, brothers and sisters of steel, for I assure you this album is still face-meltingly glorious, and when the next one comes out, you will barely have recovered!
What remains to be done before we unleash this beast involves the least amount of work from us so far. We are having the album professionally mastered, for I haven’t the skill or software necessary. The art will be drawn up by our Viking Artist of Steel, Andraes Johansson. Then we will have the CD manufactured once we have the art and the master. We have chosen a very specific place to have this done. One final detail is left completely up to us: the title. We will announce it once we declare a title worthy of the honor. The packaging, the art, and the CD will not disappoint! Hail and kill, brothers and sisters of metal!
This day we journeyed far and wide to once again return to our sonic dungeon and lay down one of the final pieces of tracking: vocals of steel. Greg had beat me there by an hour thereabouts, for I had a mighty journey, whereas he had a brief sojourn to the studio. By the time I arrived, “Haunter of the Dark” and “Into The Primordial” had vocals emblazoned upon them. The next step was to forge out “Second Son.” This took quite a while because of the intense vocals and unending harmony required. With this song under our belts, we fled the studio to put some Super Chicken right beside it. Returning in victory, it was time to begin “Supernatural Warfare.” No matter how familiar you may be with this song, there await you some surprises on the CD. It was mighty. We forged ahead to pound out “Sarnath,” and it sounds more evil than it ever did before. “Warsong” was laid out in no time, and we then called it a night of steel. Victory was ours.
I put my lead parts in tonight. It was mighty. They didn’t take very long (because I’m so amazing I suppose) so we went ahead and laid down the clean track for “Haunter of the Dark” and “Evenfall.” I’m extremely pleased with the clean tone I used. Haunter took me more takes this time around than it did last time. That is one hard fucking guitar part to play completely flawlessly in one take. I wasn’t quite feeling the storm raging within my heart (like last time) when it was being laid down. Evenfall sounded good with one guitar, but we decided then to add a classical guitar and juxtapose the two different C phrases. It came out sounding like what Odin himself would have written. My vocals were the last thing to be recorded by me and it was done without incident. I owe this to summoning deep within me the poser-smashing hate necessary to properly perform them. Hellfire was raging in my voice. With my parts completely done, I had no problem leaving the country for 3 weeks.
Today we began around 6:30. Our quest: to demolish the rhythm guitar tracks in a single evening. We journeyed across a harsh sonic landscape and overcame great programming obstacles, but in the end we raised our trophy victoriously; the guitar tracks were conquered! We are now almost halfway done with recording our debut epic, and things are sounding fantastic. In order, Tim recorded the parts for “Sarnath,” “Into The Primordial,” “Second Son,” “Warsong,” “Supernatural Warfare,” and “Haunter Of The Dark.” It was in the final track that we ran into some MIDI problems yet again. We forgot to program an entire section into the MIDI! Needless to say, this caused great sorrow in the Burning Shadows camp until we resolved to fix the MIDI before our next session and then fix the tracks afterwards. Despite this minor setback, the foundation for the album is complete; the drums and rhythm guitars are recorded, and Tim’s leads are next on the list. We’re scheduled to have an off day tomorrow, and we will return to the studio on Thursday. Then, we will let the mighty layering of tracks commence…!
This evening we began the arduous and unforgiving task of recording the geetahs! Tim beat us to the studio tonight, and once Nick and I arrived from work Nick began setting up the guitar mics. They spent about a half-hour adjusting the guitar tone before they began recording. Tim decided to lay down the lead track for “Wings,” because we had a limited amount of time tonight; we didn’t even begin playing until almost 10 pm! All in all, everything has gone very smoothly for the past few days. Tim nailed the lead parts in record time, and tomorrow we can move on to other tracks. Nick wants to record ALL the rhythm guitars, then ALL the leads and ALL the clean-tone parts, because he wants a different mic setup for each specific guitar tone. Tomorrow Tim intends to lay down the remaining rhythm and clean tracks and hopefully finish up the leads as well. We’re working under a time crunch at this point, as Tim and I only have another 4 days left in the country before our trip to Europe…
Surprise!
New mic arrangement! Fortunately, rearranging the microphones today took very little time. I arrived at the studio at 11:30 and was behind the kit recording by 12:30. We managed to get all of the tracks recorded today! I am quite pleased with the way the drums sound and very satisfied with the tracks that I laid down. The first tune we recorded was “Into the Primordial.” We had already worked for several days on this tune, and as it is one of our most recent compositions, it took the most time to nail. After “Primordial” was complete, we moved on to “Second Son.” I thought this would be an easy track to lay down because there are no tempo shifts, but I was wrong. We took several takes of “Second Son” before I took a break to clear my head. When I returned, we began working on “Supernatural Warfare.” The first and second parts of the song went very smoothly, and we only had to do two takes of it! However, problems arose with the MIDI files once more; the end of “Supernatural” was laid out wrong. We shelved “Supernatural” in favor of “Sarnath,” which again went quite smoothly. As we neared the end of “Sarnath,” Tim arrived. Once we had completed the track for “Sarnath,” we recorded “Haunter Of The Dark.” The recording was unremarkable. Everything fell together perfectly and it was barely a half-hour of work. Tim left once again to go repair the MIDI track for “Supernatural,” and in his absence we tried to record more of “Second Son,” with unsatisfactory results. The second recording of “Second Son” marked the triumphant arrival of Greg Jones. Hot on his heels was Tim with the repaired track. Upon his return, we recorded “Wings Over Asgard.” Again, we ran into few problems with this track, and it was only a matter of time before it too was complete. With over half the album behind us and only 2 songs left to record, we decided to tackle the rest of “Supernatural” before going on a dinner break. Fortunately, Tim’s work with the MIDI file was perfect, so the track was completed in short order. For dinner, we sampled the best of Wheaton’s “Chicken District,” and polished off a meal from Super Chicken. We returned to the studio to record “Warsong” and the remainder of “Second Son.” “Warsong” went much smoother than I expected, given that it is our most recent composition and one of the more complex songs on the album. I only had to take two takes of this one! Once “Warsong” was committed to tape, I re-recorded the final half of “Second Son,” and then broke down the drums. Tomorrow we begin recording Tim’s guitar parts…
Or not tomorrow. Due to a series of miscommunications, I ended up going to the RVG:TZM/Cryptopsy show rather than continue recording. Our Friday night was remarkably similar: no recording. Finally, today I made it back into the studio to begin anew. I spent the better part of the evening cleaning, and then around 8:30 we began another series of mic rearrangements. By the time we were finished testing, it was determined that I needed a hole in the front of my bass drum. So I, having never ported a drum before, began to slice through the head. I completed about half of the circle before the head broke. We temporarily repaired the broken head with duct tape but it wasn’t an acceptable sound. It was about that time that Tim arrived from the north. Nick had discovered that the MIDI track to which I was playing had gone awry; all the tempos were off. He and Tim spent about 20 minutes repairing MIDI tracks before I began to play. We only managed get two takes of the track completed, and neither of them had an acceptable sound. It was at this point that we decided to call it a night and to resume in the morning with a new head, and a new mic setup…
Well, we planned on recording at least one track today, but our plan went awry quickly after we arrived at the studio. Nick decided to rearrange the drum mics, and so we spent the first half hour retuning the drum sound. I finally worked the kinks out of my lower toms, and Nick made my kit sound even better than before! Overall, I’m very impressed and pleased with the way things are coming together. We had a few problems with the first takes of Into The Primordial, but those were quickly ironed out. Unfortunately, we can’t work too late in the evening (because of our earth-shaking volume), so we had to pack up around 11:45 and call it a night. Hopefully I can get into the studio again tomorrow night, but it’s up in the air right now as to when we record next. If I’m recording tomorrow; but Tim and Greg are off to Jaxx for the Recently Vacated Graves: True Zombie Metal/Cryptopsy show (featuring Tim and Greg of Burning Shadows fame). The goal for the next day in the studio is to record a few more tracks, if not the remaining songs, but at the very least the following: Sarnath, Supernatural Warfare, Second Son and Wings Over Asgard. Until tomorrow…