Gladsheim: Cheers man, glad you enjoyed them!
Sorry I've taken a while to write this, I had a week of exams over at my school and I was pretty much all booked up. Apologies. What follows is pretty much my own take on the music, it is my opinion mind, don't take it as fact.
No worries, I'm more ore less in the same position as you at the moment. I appreciate you managing to squeeze in some time for this!
Well for starters, Ill just say well done on getting your demo up, takes a lot of dedication and effort to write music, and I think you've done it pretty well so far.
Onto the music itself, Ill start off with what works well and what track I think to be the best, first of all I REALLY like both the guitar work through out. The guitars sound really inspired in this and you come up with some very catchy riffs throughout, such as the riffs on born for burning especially, and that really great solo at the end of End of all things. The guitar in this is something that you clearly do not lack and it really adds a whole lot to the songs. Another thing which also works especially well are the vocals, again they add a lot to the atmosphere on the tracks and they sound VERY evil. This is a band that I dont think will have any future problem in the vocal department and also THE BASS! I CAN ACTUALLY HEAR THE BASS! SWEETNESS!
I have to say it's really hard not to be inspired when you're laying down guitar tracks through a big Marshall amp in the room next to with the volume on 10, feeling every chord resonate through your body.
For each rhythm track we recorded four layers so the guitar is very present in the soundscape, yeah. Also, cool that you liked the solo in End of All Things. I have to admit I'm really not a confident lead guitarist. Normally I prefer to have written my solos in advance, note for note, but that was more or less improvised over five takes or something like that. I'm pretty happy with it really.
I really wanted the bass to be audible, especially since we have it playing some riffs on it's own in two of the songs. I would've preferred to have been even more audible but it was hard enough to get it where it is now.
Overall, Id say that the highlight of the demo itself is the track Born For Burning, That song is just a powerhouse of catchy riffs and extremely well done evil vocals, and what can I say apart from: I really, really like it. At no point does that song sound uninspired or feel boring to me and it's just plain fun throughout.
Though I'm glad you liked our version of it, Born for Burning is originally by Bathory so I suppose I should forward your praises to the mighty Quorthon.
We did play around with the arrangement some though so it's not an exact copy of the original.
There are two aspects of the demo however, that are both a mixture of good and bad. The first of these is the production, whilst I think you did a good job with some aspects of the production, such as making sure the bass is audible largely I think it leaves quite a lot to be desired. One of the biggest aspects of the production that doesnt work for me is that it all sounds rather lifeless and just mashed together with no real thought, and the guitar eclipses pretty much eclipses every other sound. I cant really comment on it seen as though I have no experience in production, but I really think you should work better at the mixing next time.
In hindsight I do agree with you here. I find the mix to be a bit sterile and too "modern" to my tastes. I would have preferred it to be a lot more "airy". However the guy who did all the mixing and mastering for us is a fan of the more modern sounding Death Metal-bands so of course that had some effect on the way he mixed it. Also, it's way better than any of my mixes (see our first two demos) and that's the most important thing to me here.
The guy who mixed it is actually remixing one of the tracks for fun since so I'm curious to how that will sound.
The other aspect of this is the use of the drum machine. I actually think it works very well in some parts, but fails completely in others. What Ive really found with the drum machine is this: It only really works well when it is going at it at full pelt. If it relaxes and takes a slower beat such as around the 45 second mark of End Of All Things and at the beginning of Born For Burning I can just tell its a drum machine, and when it comes to these things for me that is always the kiss of death, it just sounds really painfully obvious and that may be another aspect of the mix that needs improving, though if it comes down to the programming itself, you cant really do a whole lot about it.
Once again, I can only agree with you. I think it is part a mixing problem a part a problem with the samples themselves. The drums really would've benefited from a mix with more space in it. Unfortunately it's hard to find capable drummers around here, though we are working on it.
And unfortunately, it is at this point we must move onto the negatives and what I thought personally to be the weakest track here, as much as I hate doing so.
People in metal music dont really consider lyrics important I personally think, and though Im not accusing you of thinking this way, I think in this case the lyrics are something that need improvement, especially on the title track. I know its supposed to be based on the legions of chaos and thus be something along these lines, but to me it just emits the feeling of: This has been done too many times before. I also find it quite redundant in parts due to all the attempts at poetry and it feels quite clunky overall. Pretty much, when it comes to lyrics in songs, I always keep this rule in mind:
Great Instrumental With Bad/Ok Lyrics=Good Song.
Great Instrumental with Good/Great lyrics=A Great song.
Well you got me, I'm one of those guys who don't give much attention to the lyrics.
I tend pay more attention to the sound of the words and voice. Especially in Death and Black Metal I see the voice more as an instrument producing sound than words. I will definitively forward your thoughts to the singer though!
The other negative aspect I will cover in my personal vouch for the weakest track here, and that I'm afraid is the title track. For this one reason: It sounds far, far too similar to The End Of All Things. Thus differentiation between tracks is something else I think needs work on. Especially with my chosen one. I honestly cant tell the difference in the mid parts of both songs as both riffs sound almost exactly identical, and is someone was to suddenly switch midway through The End Of All Things to the title track I honestly don't think I would be able to tell the difference between the two.
To be honest, the title track is very much a filler track music-wise.
The basis for it was created back in December '09. We were just hanging it out in the middle of the night and decided to record some songs for fun. So I basically set a metronome to a tempo. hit record and improvised riffs for a minute and a half and then we recorded some silly vocals over it. The title was one of the songs, though it was called Satan and featured lyrics like "Satan took the last cookie from the jar, satan took the last candy bar". A few months later I realized I liked those riffs so I figured them out, re-arranged them and then the singer wrote new words.
(Another fun fact: the demo was originally meant to be named Impaled on a Spit which was the original title of End of All Things (the songs was written way back in 2008). However, the singer decided he didn't like the lyrics and re-wrote them and we both felt that The Hordes of Chaos sounded better as a title for the demo than End of All Things.)
having more riffs and been more diverse is very much one of the goals for future Snaegr-songs so you're opinion isn't really a revelation
Ok, that's my evaluation done, I know that was a ton of stuff to read through, but I hope its helpful to you. And remember it is only my opinion, don't take it as fact.
I can't say how much I appreciate you taking time to do this. Thanks a ton man!
