2009 RECORDING JOURNAL

[Novembers Paul]

"Into Night's Requiem Infernal" track listing:

01. Into Night's Requiem Infernal
02. Eulogy for the Living Lost
03. Empathy's Greed
04. The Fifth Day of March
05. Lazarus Regret
06. I Hurt Those I Adore
07. The Harlots Lie
08. When Desperation Fills the Void

We begin recording the 7th full length on Friday, January 16th. In this thread, we will keep a daily tour journal. This thread will be locked, and only posts from the band will be here.

 

[Novembers Paul]

FRIDAY, JANUARY 16th, 2009

Friday is always the set up day. Loading in, setting up drums, tuning and getting tones. Pretty uneventful first day as usual... That is until typical Novembers Doom fashion, a member of the band was rushed to the hospital at 3 AM. Never a dull moment!

All is well, things will resume as usual on Saturday, as we start tracking drums!

 

[Novembers Paul]

SATURDAY, JANUARY 17th, 2009

We got a very late start today, do to the hospital trip the night before. Kidney stones. Morphine. Good times.

Drum tracks for 4 songs are complete. Everyone is quite pleased with Sasha's performance. It really brings the material to a new level. Tomorrow, we track the last 4 songs, and if time permits, a cover song or two. Photos and video coming soon!

 

[Novembers Paul]

SUNDAY, JANUARY 18th, 2009

The drums are 100% complete, and sound amazing. Sasha did such a fantastic job, I believe this will be instantly noticeable from the get go. The updates have been short, but with the setback, every free moment was filled with tracking.

Whenever you start to record, even with scratch guitar tracks, the songs start to come together, and you hear things you couldn't pick out in a rehearsal setting. It makes it the anticipation grow to continue recording to hear it become the finished product.

This week is some basic drum edits and clean up, and we will start the guitar tracking on Sunday the 25th. Then, it's 8 days straight of updates. I'll add a few photos to this post later.

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

Well, Vito and I are here at the studio, ready to catch up on some sleep after a long but productive day. We spent the day trying out amps and getting sounds, finally settling on a sound that's better than we'd hoped for. I think the guitars are going to crush what we've done in the past! So far I'm pleased.
We were able to get alot of tracking done today, both Vito and I completing our rhythm tracks for several songs already. Of course that doesn't include the harmonies, solos, and other little tibdits that get added into the mix. That stuff will get done over the next couple of days. But so far I can tell you that this material will be some of the heaviest stuff we've ever done. Songs like "Harlots Lie" and "Empathy's Greed" are dark and brutal, yet still with melody. I hope people like what they hear.

On the downside, it seems that everyone is fighting off sickness. The crazy weather lately hasn't helped matters, and the studio has a tendency to be a bit on the cold side at times. Chris is hacking and coughing, and Vito thinks he feels it coming on. I'm ok for now but that can change! As long as Paul stays healthy then we'll be fine....which is part of the reason he's keeping the hell away from us for the time being, LOL.

If the rest of our days here are as productive as today was, then things should move along smoothly and quickly. Of course, that would be a rarity in the ND world, so I won't hold my breath just yet! But it's definitely a good start nonetheless.

 

[Novembers Paul]

Here's a very short video of Vito tracking "I Hurt Those I Adore".

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

We're currently finishing up tracking the heavy guitars on the title track. Soon we'll start on clean guitars, acoustic guitars, etc. If everything moves along smoothly, Paul should be coming in to get started on his vocals tomorrow afternoon.

I've been video recording the sessions, and I know Sasha filmed some as well. The clip posted above is just a quick clip done with a cell phone, but we've got some higher quality video that we'll be sharing eventually, once we have the time to edit together some of the "highlights" so to speak. So just be patient, we're just really busy over here at the moment!

 

[Novembers Paul]

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28th, 2009

First off, we apologize for the lack of photos and video. It is coming! We're so locked down, and working hard on this CD, and I think you'll all appreciate it later!

Yesterday was an all vocal day. At this point, I would guess that 75% of my clean vocals are complete. We've tried new things, and once again, Chris has pushed me to the "next level" with my vocals. I'm pretty proud of what we did. It's different from some of the past work. The best word I can use to describe some of this is "vulnerable." I think those who like songs like "Autumn Reflection" and "Twilight Innocence" will really like songs like "The Fifth Day of March" and "When Desperation Fills the Void."

Next, I finish the rest of the cleans, and move on to the growls! With luck, I'll be finished with everything on Thursday.

More soon!

 

[Novembers Paul]

THURSDAY, JANUARY 29th, 2009

Vocals are 100% complete. After finishing all my clean harmonies, the growls went quickly, and in my opinion, is the heaviest vocals I've ever laid down. We've video recorded almost all of our recording of this CD, so eventually, you guys will get to see a lot of this CD in the making. I think you'll find it will be worth the wait, and glad we didn't rush the video out to you. We WILL give you small samples as soon as we're done with the tracking. Right now, we're all 100% focused on this, and making sure we use every minute of time to benefit the recording.

Things are coming out fantastic. I can't wait for you to hear it!

 

[Novembers Paul]

FRIDAY AND SATURDAY, JANUARY 30th AND 31st

It's crunch time. We're down to guitar overdubs, guitar harmonies, and solos. Chris completed a few songs on bass, and it's all sounds HUGE. I know these updates have not been what you guys have expected, but I promise, we'll make it up to you. Every moment is spent working on the material, we lose track of time very quickly, and are usually exhausted at the end of the day to update.

In a few days, when we're all home, we'll detail all of this, and post photos and videos as promised.

 

[NvmbrsDoom5]

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 1st, 2009-

Today was the last day in the studio for Paul, Vito and myself. We started out the day with our guest keyboardist Wiley (bassist from THESE ARE THEY), and spent most of the afternoon laying down the keys. Everything went smoothly and they sound great. Wiley is an easy guy to work with and he's talented. He is also, unfortunately for him, an easy target for jokes and nicknames. We just enjoy picking on the poor guy! He takes it good-naturedly (for the most part!) Eventually he'll learn it's just a typical form of our endearment in the ND camp.

We also were joined in the studio briefly by Jason (JWW) from AGALLOCH. He stopped by with his lovely family in tow, just to say hello and catch up with us. We haven't seen any of those guys since the last tour together so it's been a while. Maybe sometime in the not-too-distant future the two bands can share a stage together again, we'll see.

The rest of the evening was spent finishing up the remaining guitar bits. I had a couple of guitar solos, harmonies, and acoustic guitars that still needed to be finished, and thankfully it all went quick and easy. Chris patiently worked with me on one of my guitar parts that I was having a bit of a brain freeze about. In the end it came out sounding great, so that was a relief.

Bass tracks are being completed within the next day, and then just some final polishing here and there, and the album is done. Next it gets sent off to Mr. Swano for his mixing and mastering capabilities. Sonically the album already sounds pretty massive (and that's with only half the bass tracks completed)! I can't wait to hear this once it's properly mixed and all.

 

[Novembers Paul]

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2nd, 2009

A short entry just to tell you Chris has completed all the bass tracks. The recording of the new CD is 100% complete. The last step before the tracks head to Sweden is cleaning up all the tracks a bit and removing noise.

Also, on a different note from yesterday, a big thank you to "The Geetus" for coming in and playing all the keys on the CD.

 

[Novembers Paul]

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 4th, 2009

We are happy to say, the project is 100% complete. Mixing and mastering was approved today, and Dan Swanö did an amazing job, even better then his previous work on our last 2 CDs. The overall sound on this CD is huge. The CD comes in at 8 tracks, just over 45 minutes of music. Also, you may hear a familiar voice on the track "When Desperation Fills the Void" courtesy of our good Friend Thomas A.G. of the band Saturnus, who was kind enough to lend his instantly distinguishable sound, in both narrative, and growls!

We've promised studio footage, and it is coming! Now that the project is complete, we can now go through all the video we have and start showing you some of the process.