I'm gonna wrap this up as this is going on far too long in this thread for me and I think perhaps some of my points are being mistaken.....
For you guys here, maybe because of your loyalty to ND or because you just personally don't think about production stuff that way, you seem to feel that you wouldn't be impacted by us announcing that we were going to DIY our next recording ourselves, and that you'd have total faith that we'd still deliver a great product. If that's how you guys feel, then we're thankful for that.
However, the fact of the matter is that a huge majority of people out there.....fans, detractors, and critics alike....will most likely view something like that with at least a sense of trepidation and skepticism. I've seen it happen too many times to too many artists. I've seen how many people's perceptions of us changed once we started working with people like Neil and Dan. And furthermore, while some bands can get away with putting out raw recordings, I don't think we're one of them. Hell look how many people out there jumped on our case just because they think our cds are
mastered too loud??? lol
Our songwriting has never been and will never be impacted by how or where we record. But to say that people like Chris, Dan, Neil, etc., don't have an impact on how the music comes to life and fills out finally at the end would be a lie. Like I said before, we use these people for their talents and their ability to help us complete the whole picture. We don't use them for their name and their gear, that's all completely secondary. At the same time, we don't utilise these people just because we want good press and want people to feel good about our next record coming out either. We have standards that we have set for ourselves sonically, and we expect a certain quality from our recordings. If other people would be happy to hear an ND cd that's recorded in lesser conditions then that's good for them, but I don't think we'd be happy, and ultimately that's what matters the most to us, because we have to please ourselves and be able to live with what we do for the rest of our lives.
As for the Nevermore thing.....I think ultimately whether EoR was a weak record or the best thing since sliced bread didn't matter in the end, the label wasn't backing them up properly at the time and it impacted alot of things in their career. Putting out that record under those conditions didn't help matters.
And I personally think that even "weak" Nevermore is better than a huge majority of the crap in the metal scene these days anyhow. Don't care if you agree or not. So there fuckos hahaha
Fini.
