Voice from the dark side
The Making of The 3rd Album 2010-2011
We have now completed the vocal recordings for the album. They were done at Coldworker Studios AKA our rehearsal room, with Anders J producing. It's three albums in a row now that we've used this mode of production, so it's a very relaxed and familiar process. The luxury of recording pretty much every instrument at different locations is that we can take our time with the vocals over several shorter sessions, which is very good for my vocal chords. This time it took five three to five hour sessions to get the vocals just the way we wanted them.
Our "singing booth" is probably the most primitive ever. It consists of a couch cushion placed vertically behind the microphone stand. It does its job and doesn't cost any money at all. The microphone we used is a Neumann TLM 103 (borrowed from Soundlab Studios), which according to Dan Swanö would ensure that the growls would be recorded with the correct amount of "David Vincent crispness".
The songs this time around are, as always, a very mixed bag when it comes to recording. Some, like "Violent Society" and "The Glass Envelope" have been around for quite some time and I could probably sing them while sleeping, while we just finished the lyrics for others. The words for "Monochrome Existence", for instance, were re-written like ten times before I was satisfied, so what you're going to hear on the album is basically me singing the song for the first time with the final lyrics.
Likewise, Anders B, who always likes to introduce a couple of kick ass songs extremely late in the game, came over to the studio and instructed me then and there on how to sing "Vacuum Fields" and "A New Era". It was a really fun session and the songs turned out great I think. Mr Bertilsson even laid down some backing vocals for "A New Era", as well as for our Japan bonus cover track - "Critical Madness" by the mighty Autopsy.
For the last session we went through all the tracks again to make sure there were no mistakes or instances of shitty singing anywhere, and recorded the only track left, which was "The Reprobate", a fast and furios song featuring lyrics and some vocals by a very special guest whose identity we'll reveal later on. For now I'll just say that the track is certainly the shit and that we are all very excited over this guest appearance.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with my work on this album. I think it will be a good bunch of tunes. Our best yet? Time will tell.
Some photos and a videoclip
Coldworker uses Neumann TLM 103, not particularly exclusive...
The entire song booth: A couch cushion, a borrowed mic, a singer and a guy with his laptop.
"The five stages of a growl" - photography by Daniel Schröder. Order a print from thefinearts@coldworker.com.
Picking oranges from a birds view.