So, I'm writing this new album with pretty long songs... read.

[Emdprodukt]

I'm not sure it makes any sense any more. I got really insecure about my own stuff. These songs are long... and I'm not sure it's just riff after riff. We're still writing... we allready got 4 tracks ready and I really need some of your criticism. Really. Let me know if this stuff is just riff after riff or if it makes any sense.

If you don't like progressive, long songs... this is not for you. There will be vocals... we just don't know who's the singer.

So give this a listen. It's not about the mix, they all sound different, playing isn't perfect at all. Concept will be Prypjat. We're planing to travel there and record some surroundings as well.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2932654/Das%20Ende.mp3 (around 12 mins, not finished yet)

1 (13 mins)



https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2932654/trauer.mp3 (this is going to be the opener... it's... different)

I will take those songs down pretty soon.... would love to get some feedback because I really need it... no... I need criticism!

 

[FIXXXER]

listening to "Das Ende", i like it, raw but melodic at the same time, big atmoshpere!
this will need some intense vocals, shouting your guts out style, something like the guy from "ENVY", just a few thoughts...
it has some "disharmonic" parts i don't like, it's ok to have it in but in this case i think it's a bit too much.

love the concept, don't forget to take tons of pics when you are there!

will check the other tunes tomorrow!

 

[smy1]

I just listened to Das Ende and I have to say it sounds like just a bunch of riffs to me. Don't get me wrong, the atmosphere is there and some of the riffs/chords/clean parts are great, but there is no structure. It's just one part after another without any sense (at least I can't detect one without vocals). Music needs to be repetitive so that a listener can follow it and remember it, so even if your song is long and has many parts, you need to come back to at least one main part/motive/theme.

A possible structure would be: A1/A2/B1/B2/A2/A3/B1/B2/C1/C2/D1/A1/A2/E1/E2/E3/F1/E1/E2/E3/F2/G1/G2/G3/F3/A1/A2/E1/E2 ... where A1/A2 might be the recurring theme. Otherwise it's just a bunch of riffs.

 

[LeSedna]

my songs are all 6mn minimum so I'm gonna listen to it.

^ What smy1 has said, although this is not necessarily a strict rule, I do it in 2 of my 4 songs exactly this way, and on the 2 others I keep a riff long enough to make it catchy enough for a listener before I can switch to another ambiance, but my music is totally different to this (a lot of instrumental progressive parts that develop themselves over a few mn in between more metal moments). Your music being more "songs" and riffs orientated you have to go back to something at least at some point. EDIT after listening the whole song : yeah, the problem is that during the whole 12mn run, you just pass from one riff/chorus to another version of it, but you don't develop any "epic part" in the middle, you don't lower the intensity to deliver some message and then slowly go back to something epic as fuck. Actually you do at 7:22 finally, I think you could have done this earlier because after 4mn of riffing the intensity was staying at the same height so you could easily cut 3mn already imo. This part is like what gives breathe to your song. In your style I'd say what sammy has said : after this part, when the intensity goas back to normal, try getting back once to your "chorus" maybe, then develop to the darker/rawer riffs for the end of the song, or the other way around.

I have a song that does something like this, and every letter is something like 1mn to 1mn30 :

A/B/C/D/Abis/Bbis/E

Where Abi and Bbis are A and B but with a little more intention and going higher to a more epic ending (it ends with the epic solo of the song while the first time it would transition with part C). To make it more epic, I doubled the guitars with 2 guitars that play simple chords in the background to create a denser wall of sound behind the normal riff, the drums does more drum roll where a lot of those are triplets (triplets create a great sense of epicness in such cases).

I actually like where your music is going but I agree it doesn't need to be 12mn long. Make them 6/7mn already, 12mn only works for bands like Archive.

Agreed with soultrash, you need an emotive screamer on such a music. It has a very good potential imo ! I like the opener, I mean I can see it develop in a good intro if polished and with a lot of ambient work on the creative side of its future mix etc. The riffing is simple but does its job as emotion conveyer.

About the playing : to me this kind of music doesn't sound better at all with polished edited playing. I would play this raw as fuck, tight, but not edited for the most part, and with a guitar sound that even has a little more character. None of the riffs are technical, so you can experiment with some more grainy and sludgy sounds to make it sound huge.

 

[Emdprodukt]

Thanks guys. We really tried to not match any of those structures. We actually came back to some things just in another sense, maybe vocals will make this more obvious. We didn't want to do the same thing over and over again... like developing into epicnes but rather do the opposite. We'll have some time to relisten and overthink everything and give this child some vocals. It's good to get feedback and it's even better to know those riffs don't suck. About that structure thing: I can totaly understand your arguments.
About singers: We like the voices of "Cult Of Luna", "Fall Of Efrafa", old "Modern Life is War", "Rinoa", "Isis" and such. We always wrote with vocals in our minds so maybe that's giving us some more structure Still hate the idea to repeat something just to give the listener some kind of structure ...

 

[smy1]

Still hate the idea to repeat something just to give the listener some kind of structure ...

Of course I'm a very pop/hook-oriented guy, but is there a reason you want to make it as difficult for listeners as possible to get into the music? If yes, why are you asking us for feedback because then it surely won't matter?

Oh, and I don't know any of the band's mentioned here, but if this music had predominantly screaming vocals, I'd turn off after 3-4 minutes. It's just too boring to have a dude yell in various ways for 12 minutes ...

 

[crillemannen]

Listened to Das Ende. I like it, really nice and atmospheric Its always hard to judge without vocals. But i agree with the others it is always nice to have some sort of theme if the song is so long, or some sort of red thread throughout the whole song, and that is where lyrics and vocals can really add something. Take the song Change of seasons with DT, it moves in the same harmonies but the song itself don't have any really theme that comes back, so you don't have to have that either. But the progression of the song should always sound logical or sound like it all fits. I would love to hear it with clean vocals, but also growls, kind of Opeth style that would be truly awesome.


The song itself could probably stop around 7.4 with that clean part fading out.


Sounds awesome though Don't make the album generic sounding though you could really make an awesome album with allot of feel if you allow yourself to have a more natural sounding drums etc. And why don't you come to Sweden so i can record you haha would be super!!!

 

[Emdprodukt]

Sounds awesome though Don't make the album generic sounding though you could really make an awesome album with allot of feel if you allow yourself to have a more natural sounding drums etc. And why don't you come to Sweden so i can record you haha would be super!!!

We will record with lot's of room mics and 100% real drums. Got a really good drummer for this.

If you like to record us... you gotta invite us. We're poor bastards

 

[Emdprodukt]

Of course I'm a very pop/hook-oriented guy, but is there a reason you want to make it as difficult for listeners as possible to get into the music? If yes, why are you asking us for feedback because then it surely won't matter?

Oh, and I don't know any of the band's mentioned here, but if this music had predominantly screaming vocals, I'd turn off after 3-4 minutes. It's just too boring to have a dude yell in various ways for 12 minutes ...

Please don't get me wrong. I absolutely take your feedback serious because I respect your knowledge about songwriting and production. It makes me reconsider my point of view. I just wanted to share my mindset. The reason to make this music "difficult" is because I'm listening to a lot of music that seems inaccessable to the "usual" listener . Old cult of Luna are actually what you described as boring as they have pretty much the same shouting through 12 minute songs. There are a lot of crust, sludge and doom elements to be found.
Some of the bands rarely repeat themselves. I wanted to go a little step further with more technical parts (although this is not really technical)


We may need to grow into that stuff. Its the first time I'm working with such long songs and concept. Thanks for all the feedback, it does matter!

 

[jipchen]

If it's anywhere as awesome as the ATTR stuff I will most likely love it
Really interested, but can't listen right now because my girlfriend will kill me if I'm not on my way to her in the next few minutes
Will have a listen and report back!

We will record with lot's of room mics and 100% real drums. Got a really good drummer for this.

Wird der Nils die Drums wieder einspielen? Ist echt eine Wohltat mal so jemanden aufzunehmen haha. Schade dass ich so unendlich weit weg bin (bzw ihr seid hier jawohl die Leute am Arsch der Welt haha), sonst hättet ihr gerne mein Studio benutzen können. Bzw könnt ihr natürlich auch so wenn ihr Lust habt auch wenn ich bezweifle dass ihr Bock + die Mittel für eine Weltreise habt.. Hätte aber ziemlich Bock drauf, zu zweit Mikros zu schubsen, verschiedene Stereo/Raum Techniken zu probieren etc. Wenn du willst kannst du mir ja mal schreiben. Übernachten etc ist kein Problem.

 

[SocialNumb]

Personally I like how it keeps evolving. Then again I listen to fucked up music that has no standard structure, for the most part. That said, I think smy1 is right, most people need to hear repetition.

 

[Emdprodukt]

Thanks guys. I'm not sure this supposed to be for the most but is more like music for a very specific taste. We'll see how this evolves.



Max, ich würde zwar echt gerne, bin aber auch ein bisschen heiß drauf meine Räume zu Renovieren und das dann zu checken. Und ja, der Nils ist ein guter

 

[Emdprodukt]

I don't like Led Zeppelin, sorry Dude Mastodon are a indeed awesome but I'm more into the sludgier side of things. Ever heard of "Fall of Efrafa" ?



They're actually a big influence and so is Cult Of Luna. You gotta be in the right mood for this stuff though

 

[LeSedna]

^ This one is awesome, I never heard of them. I have to give it a fair listen when I have time !

 

[Emdprodukt]

They wrote three albums about the Book "Watership Down". The first one is more crustpunk oriented with shorter and faster songs. second and third album are more like the song I posted. Awesome awesome band.

Max, do you had a chance to listen to our crap?

 

[ttrentt]

I REALLY like das ende. I am actually working on an album of songs that is very similar. Atmospheric, with no set "song structure." If a song structure comes out in the writing process then great, if it doesn't, I am not forcing it.

T

 

[ArthurD]

I want to get involved with this. I'll do vocals if you want to.

This is me singing (two different voices the same time, really shows how my voice is, it was recorded live)



And here are some other styles I sing too:



and




PM me.

If you want help with the compositions too I would happly help.

Thank you!

 

[Nuno Filipe]

Long songs are cool if you make it interesting whole the time. But a long song with a standard structure like verse/pre chorus/chorus it will suck. Not this style but one of my favourite songs ever is Dante´s Inferno by Iced Earth and it has 16m, always changing and without what you can call a chorus but it´s fucking awesome.

 

[Emdprodukt]

No hipster cred for me, never heard of them. Disregard Zeppelin then - in the end it's about what YOU like.
What I wanted to get across is that you can set yourself apart from bands like Cult of Luna and Fall of Efrafa by doing things differently in terms of arrangement, melody and instrumentation.
Who needs a carbon copy of what they do?
I surely don't.
Don't make redundant music.

I'm trying as hard as I can. Thanks for listening man!

I REALLY like das ende. I am actually working on an album of songs that is very similar. Atmospheric, with no set "song structure." If a song structure comes out in the writing process then great, if it doesn't, I am not forcing it.

T

Yeah, that's just how we roll. We never had the feeling it would be necessary to have a chorus or to copy some riffs. We felt like there is a red chord of emotions that float thorugh the songs.

I want to get involved with this. I'll do vocals if you want to.


PM me.

If you want help with the compositions too I would happly help.

Thank you!

You're a GREAT vocalist with a great style and range. Deep Purples Child in Time is one of my favourite songs ever and they're actually the reason I got into rock music. If you have the chance, listen to Cult Of Luna, Fall Of Efrafa, Rinoa, Amia Vanera Landscape, Defeater or Modern Life Is War to know what we're looking for. Very emotional screaming/shouting... that doesn't mean we don't want clean vocals at all and this is were I'm coming back to you when we finished the songs. You're way to good for that stuff we're doing because you actually have skills

Long songs are cool if you make it interesting whole the time. But a long song with a standard structure like verse/pre chorus/chorus it will suck. Not this style but one of my favourite songs ever is Dante´s Inferno by Iced Earth and it has 16m, always changing and without what you can call a chorus but it´s fucking awesome.

Just my attitude. The reason I need this kind of feedback is because I know a lot of people can't follow such long songs and need some kind of structure but I'm not so sure this will work for us.