Tuesday 30 November 2010

Some Good News and another little set back

First, the good news, sat down to fix the drum part today and managed to fix it up pretty well. Some cutting and pasting and it's almost as good as new, so great news there.

However I've had another set back this time on one of my tracks. It's a pretty cool little bass riff with extra clipping, or at least I think it's clipping. Or maybe it could be interference from an outside source. Maybe I need to check my instrument leads. What do you guys think?



Download

Friday 26 November 2010

A little update

Sadly I'm gonna have to put my reviews on hold while I wrestle with these mixes I work on. I'm still gonna keep updating but I'm more likely to post some more Black-Iris stuff review wise, in the meantime I guess I can keep you updated on how the mixing is going. Hopefully it should only take me a few days to sort it out, though I'm yet to hear from my mate about his drum microphones as to what the hell he did. If I don't hear back from him by tonight I might give him a call and see whats up.

Wednesday 24 November 2010

A plea!

In my spare time I do a little bit of freelance mixing and recording work for friends. I was looking at this drum track I was sent and well. There's something a little weird about it. THERE IS SO MUCH HISS! Who know how it's possible for it it be recorded so badly. Check the video for the sound clip.

Slumber - Fallout

Another Black Iris blog. I'd like to point out that I don't agree with providing a download link, even thought I'm not sure it works, but he insisted I change nothing so there you go.

Another band that you wont of heard of, but it none the less awesome.



The Swedish six piece play the sort of metal that you listen to and it instantly leaves an impression on you, if you like the weirdness factor of bands like Katatonia or Opeth then Slumber may be the band for you. The haunting melodies of their only released effort, Fallout, transport you in to a much darker place, which is appreciated far more if you take the time to actually listen to the music (preferably with headphones in the middle of the night) instead of just having it on the background, which is a great disservice to the band.

Fallout's mix of Death and Doom is tinted with a hint of the gothic in the use of Strings and Choirs in a few tracks. The opener Rapture drags you in with a heavy beat on the toms and a hypnotizing guitar and synth combo which just forces you to listen, this then raises into a crescendo and then crashes forth into a floaty yet heavy sound scape, like bursting through solid rock into an infinite space.

While the instrumentation is majestic the growls of bass player Siavosh Bigonah and vocals of Ehsan Kalantarpour are anything but, proving to be the standard death metal affiar of harsh gutturals, which creates an eerie contrast to the clean chanted vocals used through out.

To tie it all up Slumber are a underground fans wet dream, the music is deep and interesting. And while it is majestic and spacey, it does not disappoint on the front of brutality, A must for anyone into Opeth and other weird metal.

9/10

SLUMBER - FALLOUT
Genre: Melodic Death/Doom Metal
Download:  Mediafire

Cry For Silence - The Glorious Dead

This is the first review donated by Black Iris, let me know what you think

First band up is Cry For Silence, a band from Watford, England who, sadly, called it quits after their first full album release 'The Glorious Dead'. The band, during their active days, played with such bands as Caliban (German Metalcore Pioneers), Sikth (British Progressive Metal), Funeral for a Friend, The Black Dahlia Murder, Shadows Fall and many other bands that you probably have heard of. Why, then have you not heard of Cry for Silence? That is a good question, as they are one of the better bands to have come out of the UK hardcore scene.



The sound is not something I hear very often and is a refreshing change from the hundreds of generic metalcore bands that have sprung up during the last decade or so. While all the classic elements are present, harsh, distorted vocals, chugging breakdowns and emotional lyrics, they are used in ways which are far from common within the genre.

The vocals are not screamed in the normal fashion; the singer Adam Pettit has been described to sound as if he is pissing cactus needles. This unique sound may take quite a lot of time to get used to but the style fully fits with the chunky down tuned sound of the band, when listening to Adam's vocals it becomes obvious that a more generic approach just wouldn't work in Cry For Silence.

Another unusual aspect of the band is that of bass player Andy Saxton, a skilled player that remains audible through out the entire album, providing complex tapped lines and classical guitar style melodies to the mix, as well as simple driving lines and counter melodies. This mix of the bass fills out the sound scape with the guitars of Alex Venturella and Steve Sears, creating a much darker and foreboding sound that (as far as I am aware) no other band has replicated.

Overall Cry for Silence's 'The Glorius Dead' is an epic of an album, mixing brutal pedal riffs with melodic and rather beautiful passages, bundled in a unique casing that not many bands seem to have latched on to. If you are a metalcore or hardcore fan this is one to check out.

9 / 10

CRY FOR SILENCE - THE GLORIOUS DEAD
Genre: Hardcore / Metalcore
Buy The Album
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Welcome

Hey welcome to Process The Sounds music review blog; simply an outlet for my random journalism.

Yes I suck at thinking up names.

I'm hoping this is gonna be a regular thing; then again I do get kinda busy sometimes so let's just go with I'll update when I can.

Just to get thing moving I'm gonna post up a couple of reviews done by a buddy of mine. He has a blog called Black Iris music which he's not updated in a while so he said I could post some of his reviews on my site just to get a little bit of traffic going. They should be up soon so look out for them!