Nailin' (Palin) the vox, clean edition...

Merry Christmas boys and girls!

I'm here at Villvox Studios in the village of Villähde, determined to blow this basement in to gazillions of bits and pieces.

Today we finished with all the clean vocals. We started last week when we recorded for three days and continued this week for five more days (three to go now). Last week I had some problems with my voice. This was mainly because of too long days and not enough voice maintenance. I guess I took off too ambitious wanting to make everything done as soon as possible. Well, live and learn as a good padawan accepts. This week we started out with the terms of the voice, meaning let's do as much as the voice can handle and when it starts to feel bad we call it quits for the day. Obviously a great game plan, eh? And, it worked.

I'm so exstatic to work with our producers. That's right, we have two right now. Ville is the main producer and Mikko Herranen is here to produce the vocal parts. That's fuckin' teamwork. I've learned a lot from Mikko I have to say (who I think is one of the best vocalists I've heard from Finland). The approach to every song has been like us finding the true essence and the meaning of the songs and live these emotions while singing them. Some parts are pretty personal so there's a lot of "pain" in the songs so the experience has been very emotional as well. The last six months in my life have been probably the worst ones. This helps me to recover.

I decided to open up this session of the clean vocal parts to you by putting some of the key lyrics here about what we've been singin here these last days. The order of the songs listed below is the order in which we recorded them, not the official track listing. The song names are working titles except few exception.

1. "Middle"
This is a song where the album takes some breath. We started with this one because it's the most soft one for the voice and it was easy to set the right mood for the recordings with this. It is an essential song which will be the watershed of the album:

"...all these thoughts cause too much pain; all the colours of childhood are turning grey. All that I fear, I now must face, so grant me this wish: give me time to inhale..."

2. "Trioli"
Probably the most heaviest song on the album. Riffs that are filled with lead and sledgehammers. You will definately find some new stuff on this colossal neck breaker. One of my favourites at the moment:

"...the bullet's inside and penetrates my mind; I'm trapped in you and the horror comes alive..."

3. "Mastoantti"
Now this is a very cool song with an ultimate leanback-groove. This feels like a tribute to Pantera's amazing "Far Beyond Driven" album. The lyrics of the song are in my opinion one of the keys to enter inside the message of the whole album:

"...poisoned by this need to kneel...I wash my face with filth, confession incomplete, and I leave this place in fires hoping it'll learn someday..."

4. "Superpowertrip"
One of the fastest songs on the album. Totally unforgiving. Very punkish as well. Trust me, this kills:

"...I decide how I should live, by the day, and create..."

5. "Black Sabbath"
In lyric-wise this could well be a letter that I've written to someone who is out of reach and maybe this person will find the letter after twenty years or so, reads it, and realizes that it's already too late to turn the direction. It's about those fatal choises that define the direction of our lifes:

"...and the moments start to fade, fade into the horizon, and it stains you all your life, no chance to apologise right..."

6. "Left"
I think this song is the catchiest one on the album. The chorus just haunts you forever after you first hear it (in a good way, hah!). Expect some massive clean vocal arsenal here, it's still metal as fuck:

"...All that you have, having it won't save your ass from the useless days that have passed. No higher purpose for some shared good cause, no salvation at the end of the story you have willingly bought..."

7. "Speedmetal"
A treat. Nice surprise. Unexpected turn. Consumer's wake-up call. The Truth:

"...fill in the blanks in your un-aimed mind, plastic for you to spend your time on, marching invasion overtakes us all and the seconds are running out..."

8. "Uusin"
Another fast ass whipper. We had some problems with this one finding out the perfect option for the chorus but we managed to get the pieces together to make it something special. It's a hit and run song with a big FU to all those fucking moral guardians who think their way is the right way. Go suck a pope:

"...the parasites, dealing this guilt with their lies, I dream of the day when the last of those leeches will die...

9. "Base"
Some of you have probably already heard the demo version from YouTube of this one. It's the perfect start for the album. Get's the juices going and the pits moving. This song is written for you, our fans, we owe it to you for all the great times we've had together. You're our base:

"...I choose the way of battle, scream my voice until it shatters. Are you with me!?! I keep my base..."


10. "Skitzo"
The most disturbed song on the album (not the band). It starts up with some bottled up anxiety, continues with a fullspeed rampage of rage and ends up in an awe. I don't want to describe this too much, you'll see:

"...living in fear for the rest of my life, trying to forget what I have seen. And the merciless eye made a part of me die, closed for now, still there somehow..."


11. "Right"
Combine the idea of a vengeance and hard core and you might get close to something like this song is:

"...you built me a world made of things I've grown to hate, but this world also gives me the right, the right to retalite..."

So there you go. I know you're pickin' your synapses right now and thinking "WTF?!?", but this is the shit that's going down right now. We're making the album of our lives as we speak and it is very satisfying. Tomorrow we start with the growls, screams, öriörioinkoinks and whatnots. This basement is set for annihilation.

~ Jules