The Cadaverous Retaliation Agenda
About the recording
Even before “Bleeding the new apocalypse” was released in February 2011, K started writing for what was to become “The cadaverous retaliation agenda”. Approximately 20 months after the composing started the beast had come alive. All the guitars, serpents, orchestras and programmings, as well as Petter S. Freed‘s guitar solo in “Welcome the Judas agenda” was recorded in K’s home studio The Dungeon while J‘s vocals and Lars Johansson‘s (Candlemass) solos were tracked in ART Studios, Stockholm. Ruby did her vocals in Lisbon, Portugal, just as she did on “Bleeding the new apocalypse”. The rest of the guitar solos were put down in the home studios of Magnus Söderman and Danny Tunker. Peter Dolving recorded his incredible guest parts on his own. The honor of doing the drums went to the magnificent Dirk Verbeuren, who put down the work in his own Die Crawling studio. All of this is what makes up “TCRA”.
About the title
Spawned from the mind of K. The word “cadaverous” was in K’s mind for quite some time and just needed to find its place in a sentence to form the title he was looking for. This album is retaliation in its purest form and the concept of it is our agenda, so once those words came together – it was done. It explains everything that TPH was about at that exact time.
About the cover
Marko Saarelainen created something absolutely astonishing. There’s a very dark feeling to this piece of work and it absolutely represents the vibe of the album; diabolic and beautiful, yet grotesque. As usual he drew inspiration from titles and whatnot – coming up with this masterpiece to give the album its visual appearance.
In his own words: “The very rough sketch for the artwork was spawned almost a year before it was chosen for this album… I was kind of lost with the actual direction of it and had no idea if I’d finish it or if it could be used in any “real life” case. So I left it on hold, so to speak, and concentrated on other projects instead. But the very second I heard the actual album title from Lord K I just knew that I already had a perfect foundation for what would become the album cover for “The Cadaverous Retaliation Agenda”. It took merely a few minor alterations to the original sketch and it all fell in place: The work reflected perfectly the feeling I got from the music and the few song titles I heard at that point felt like they were spoken versions of the actual artwork.
I kept working and perfecting the artwork the same time as K kept working on with the songs, so you could say that the visuals more or less grew together with the actual songs.”
A deeper meaning
As always, nothing on this album is by chance. Everything is dissected and calculated into the smallest detail. A lot of you people seem to think that the “DCLX…†tracks on “TCRA†are just small instrumental pieces in between the “real†songs. Hardly so. There’s much more to them than that. They are there to give you a hint/reminder of what’s to come and what has been. Confused yet? You must not be. This will all be very clear to you shortly, and you will further understand what kind of thought and work went into “TCRAâ€.
1. DCLXI – This is the initiation to everything that is “TCRAâ€. The seed of what’s to come. The proclamation of 12 coming sermons.
2. I feed you THE flesh of your poisonous Christ – Pay attention to the first riff of the whole album.
3. DCLXII – We start with granting you things that will occur on the album later on, but at this point you have no idea about it. This piece is based on a part from the song that ends “TCRAâ€, namely “Welcome the Judas agendaâ€. It’s just transferred into piano and downbeats, adding a completely new atmosphere to it.
4. We watch in silence as the earth turns to blood
5. DCLXIII – “Carving out the tongues which speak of salvation†is serving as the source for what this instrumental is based on. Listen closely and you should easily find the section that is used in here. Masking it in a techno environment shouldn’t prevent you from hearing it since it’s pretty much using the same BPM as well.
6. Conquering the throne of the CADAVEROUS
7. DCLXIV – On top of the obvious electronics and the sermons speaking about flesh is a part from the song “The great retaliation is upon themâ€.
8. The great RETALIATION is upon them
9. DCLXV – And now we move backwards to remind you of what you just heard, even though you most likely won’t notice it until I explain it to you. Underneath the preachings and effects is a very low orchestra thing, that eventually becomes more obvious, based on a riff from “Conquering the throne of the cadaverousâ€.
10. Carving out the tongues which speak of salvation
11. DCLXVI – “We watch in silence as the earth turns to blood†holds a section that is used for this song. Also note how the ending orchestras use the same tones as the start of “Welcome the Judas agendaâ€, binding the two together perfectly.
12. Welcome the Judas AGENDA – The guitars that end the album play the exact same riff that opens up “I feed you the flesh of your poisonous Christâ€, only very much slower with added harmonies, making the album end with the very first riff that starts off “TCRAâ€. And by doing so, it is completing the cycle.
