Alunah's Half-Arsed Studio Report

If you're reading this you're probably far too bored for words, but thanks anyway we appreciate it.

It's 8am on a Saturday morning, first day of recording "White Hoarhound" with Greg Chandler at Priory Studios and Soph's been hit with a painful throat and ear virus! At least we get a bit of silence over the weekend though... in all seriousness it is quite bad and we're just hoping that she feels better soon. Luckily vocals aren't being recorded until next weekend... (selfish barstards!)

So, after loading the cars, we make our way (luckily for us, only 15 mins away) through the dense fog to Priory Studios in Canwell. The studios are owned by Greg Chandler who is the singer/guitarist of Esoteric... a man who knows his doom all too well! Being on a weekend, our only neighbours are the sheep, squirrels and rabbits who i'm afraid are about to take a real ear bashing! Poor things! Idyllic and peaceful surroundings... perfect for some doooom!

The next couple of hours are spent setting up and tuning the drums, and getting the heaviest and sexiest sounds possible on the bass and Dave's guitar. Gaz's bass sound is immense and is guaranteed to rattle your pants off! Soph will do hers next weekend along with her vocals (hopefully). The new album is very much inspired by the natural world and being at The Priory in Canwell (the area where a medievel monastry once stood... pretty cool eh?) on such a glorious day will really make the album come alive.

Over the course of the day we got the drums, bass and one rhythm guitar section done for half the album... pretty good going! Some of this time was also spent eating Jake's birthday cake, discussing when we are going to get the barbeque up and running, and nicking Soph's medicinal whiskey... we didn't bother with her honey and lemon though!

Towards the end of the day we had a mad panic when Dave's guitar started to badly crackle which we thought was a blown speaker in his green Matamp cab. He tried his other cab (another green cab which he always says sounds different and we never believed him... but it bloody does! Sounds loads different!) but we couldn't match the sound! Anyway, he took the original one home and looked at it, it all seems fine so we're keeping our fingers crossed!

We started the second day of recording slightly later than planned. Dave had been busy fixing his cab and Soph was feeling worse than she did yesterday which ended up with her going to the emergency doctors, which is really shitty. On a postive note, we managed to lay down drums, bass and one rhythm guitar section for the second half of the album. Greg burned off some rough mixes for us and we're chuffed to bits with the results! If the rough mix sounds this good already we cannot wait to get the final mix! It's already sounding heavier than "Call of Avernus"

So next weekend will be recording Soph's vocals and guitar (all being well!), Dave's lead parts and any extra intricacies that we put in.