The 'Album 2' Thread

Not too much really. Mitchell has done some writing recently and more mixing has been done with War with the Sky. Scott has been out of commission a lot lately due to allergies. Still trucking along though!

I usually add a pretty thorough synopsis of our recording progress every month in our monthly newsletter, which should be sent out soon. Are you on that?
 
Android Gmail loves inserting asterisks when copying and pasting.

Last night was a very productive evening with Wyatt and I joining Mitchell at his home studio/spare bedroom.* Just a little Digi 002 rig, Alesis monitors, and Macbook Pro.* It’s what we recorded Birthright on.* We were continuing to work on a track currently titled “Last Attempts.”* This one has the feel of a possible epic.* The second album, as you may have gleaned if you’ve seen us live, is relatively short on epics and long on brevity to this point. *Nothing intentional; it’s just where the songs have gone.* But this one has the feeling that it can go anywhere and everywhere.* Last night it went to a completely different place than it did from the same point in the song last Thursday.* It starts with a “how can we improve that transition… here’s one… okay but that goes better into something like this… well hey that’s awesome…”* Neither evening was wasted by any means, as both produced really really cool ideas that will surely appear, if not where we expected them to.* In short, the re-focus on the album has been refreshing and the ideas are flowing faster than ever.

As for influences at the moment, Mitchell, the lynchpin of the writing process, doesn’t listen to music when he’s writing.* So nothing will be copped directly.* But I do know that the recent really good DT album stoked that prog metal fire a bit in him and Taylor.* Nothing metal, prog or otherwise ever left Matt.* He and I have both gotten into some of the Alcest/Deafheaven shoegazey metal bands.* Most of us have gotten into Anathema quite a bit.* It’s hard to believe, but we didn’t listen to Katatonia when we were writing Birthright, and they’ve been a favorite for years now. *Wyatt’s real musical wheelhouse is heavy, rhythmic rock.* I’ve been on a folk-rock singer-songwriter kick for a couple years, which probably won’t come across.* But point being, our horizons have expanded considerably since writing the last album.* No surprise since a lot of that Birthright material was sitting there for a good while before we were even a band, and Birthright was a couple years later.* I’m excited about this new stuff.
 
Great update! All i know is I love every new song that i've heard live so far and can't wait to hear the riffs and melodies in a polished format.