We finally got the carpets installed, although there were less of them than we expected. Our gear is now in the new room, so we could finally leave behind that shithole of a rehearsal space we had earlier. The amount of filth was mind-boggling. Comparatively our new rehearsal room is clean and fresh!

Later on we had a fruitful band meeting discussing things like how to acquire some speakers and the direction of the band. Next week we’ll record the remaining tracks for Smothered and LCD, and if all goes well they’ll be out for your enjoyment before mid-November!

Miiro's and Juha's gear

Pate's drums

Drummer's view

We had a very productive recording day finishing up the lead vocals for Smothered! 😀 Next up is comping and editing, and then we’ll record some backup vocals, some of which I may take a shot at… Who knows how that’ll turn out. 😛

In other news, we’ve had problems getting a hold of the carpets, which is delaying our rehearsing, but I’m sure we’ll get it done this week. Might be cool to record some vids of us playing, once we’ve got things fixed, so keep checking for updates!

Progress has been slow, but steady. We’re finally getting the carpets in place this weekend and next week we’ll figure out how to acquire the PA we’ve been missing ever since switching to the new rehearsal room. Once the carpets are in we’re gonna move in the rest of our stuff from next door. Literally next door, since our new rehearsal room is four steps away from the old one. 😀

We also set a date to record the rest of Smothered’s and LCD’s vocals, so depending on how well it goes, it might be the last recording day needed before mixing. Give it a week for mixing and then we’ll have some new stuff for you to enjoy!

In the meanwhile you can check out the updated Members section and leave a few comments around the site, since the only comments we’ve got now are spam and have been trashed. 😀

One of our quirkier songs, I think, is Can’t Catch It. If it would have to be fit into a genre, I’m not sure which one I would put it in, but I guess it might fit under the very broad “progressive rock”, like most of our stuff. The name of the song is something originally invented by Pate, but then mangled through my mind to make it family-friendly. If you’re clever you might figure it out. 😉

We had quite some trouble ironing out the structure for the song, because of the second wave. I really wanted it to have the fast up part that starts at about 2/3 into the song, but would’ve loved to have it go back to slower feel, but playing it live, we realized it wouldn’t be possible to make it work in any sensible way, so I rewrote the fast part and the song came into its current form.

We haven’t trained the song in ages, but it’ll probably be the next one up along with Gift. The drum/bass combo plays a large role in the verses, which is something similar to Makeshift. Here’s the demo version I recorded at home:

Righto! Here’s a treat for all you fans. This is a version of S.H.Arkfister recorded over a year ago, back in July of 2010 to be exact. It was recorded live at our rehearsal room and it features Pate on drums, Miiro guitar and Juha on guitar AND bass. Imagine that. Playing two instruments simultaneously…

I went to the rehearsal room with some guys from the other band called The Days of Lost (I hope I got that right!) who we’re sharing the space with and we finished cleaning up all the damn polystyrene and other shit from the corners of the room.

Next phase would be to coat the floors with some carpets to lessen early reflections and then we’re ready to move in our gear. We still gotta buy a PA system and probably some mics, too, but we’re progressing at a good pace now.

Meanwhile we’re still working on Smothered and LCD. We’re trying to find a good date to record the rest of the vocals. I might even make an attempt at singing backup vocals for Smothered, although I’ve got a feeling it might not turn out great, so I’m reserving my right to back out of that. 😀

I might post some live recordings or something else next week, so stay tuned!

Here are some pics of the new rehearsal space! We started cleaning up the place, but lacked the right tools for more precise cleaning so work will resume in a week. Hopefully we’ll get things up and running before next Sunday.