Time for a quick update on the recording.

Things have been hectic around here to say the least. The last few weeks have been pretty busy outside Severed Fifth, but I have been working hard on getting the remaining instruments recorded. After finishing up a bunch of small overdubs on the guitars, I started work on the bass.

I always love playing bass. There is a certain satisfaction that I get from it that is different to other instruments. Then again, this is one of the pleasures of playing it all yourself – playing drums gives me a really satisfying sense of physicality, guitar provides a melodic and chunky metal satisfaction, bass provides a different feel and vocals are particularly fun from an expressive perspective.

The bass tracks were fairly straight-forward to record after I spent some time getting the right sound. I have gone for a slightly distorted metal sound – I had tried a few clean sounds, but it just didn’t sound ballsy enough. So, I dialed up a little bit more gain. The current sound is a more Children Of Bodom and Hatebreed-ish – it certainly sounds like a metal sound. Probably the toughest track to do the bass on was War – it has a bunch of little intricate bass fills and runs in the clean guitar parts. It didn’t take too long though, and I am happy with the results.

Next up it is the vocals. Now, this is going to be an adventure…

If there is one thing that is going to take a long time on this album, it is the vocals. So far I am happy musically, but I tend to get a bit antsy about the vocals when I record, and it is going to be more-so with this album. Firstly, this is the debut Severed Fifth album – I want to make it sound as good as I can make it, which in itself dials up some pressure, and secondly I am using a few different vocal techniques here, and past experience has shown that it sometimes takes a little time to get used to new techniques and ensure they are properly done. As such, I am expecting the vocals to be the most work on the album, so I can get them just right.

I have already tracked a few songs worth of vocals, but I have the majority of the album yet to do in terms of vocals.

So where do I stand right now? Well, musically, most of Denied By Reign is complete, I just have the vocals to finish up and then mix it. The album is taking a heck of a strain on the studio, with my Dual Processor Mac G5 beginning to strain under the 35 tracks of audio and the wads of real-time compression, EQ, effects and more going on. I have never pushed my set-up like this before. Mixing is going to be an interesting experience.

I don’t have any definitive release date for the music yet, but it is not going to be until at least August I suspect. I am about to begin a five-week traveling spree that takes me to Turkey, London, Portland, San Francisco and Argentina and I am working to get as many of the vocals completed this week and will then finish off the remaining parts when I am back in England after the trip. Fear not though, I am planning to release a bunch of sneak peeks from the current mix in the weeks that I am away – so you will have some music to get your teeth into to get an idea of how the album is sounding.

Stay tuned folks!