“Armageddon March Eternal”

The recording of “Armageddon March Eternal”, as reported by Lord K Philipson thru the Official Forums at www.globaldomination.se, spring 2005. Some of it might not make much sense as we have copy/pasted most of it without including everything written in between the reports, but at least this will give you an idea how this album went by recording-wise.

February 2nd

Ok, here we go. The guitar-stuff is now set up and I can start tracking the guitars anytime I feel like it. Just got my Rhoads back, all worked on and in better shape than ever before. I have fucken missed my guitar to say the least, but it’s been great using the KE3 since I don’t play that one too often. I think I’ll make that one my GAI-guitar from now on. Fat chance. Nothing beats my Rhoads.

Anyways… I’m a tad busy this weekend so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do much, but having all the time in the world is a great feeling instead of putting down 40 guitars in 2 fucken days. I’m longing to start recording this album now and do my part, then let Mazza in and let him add the icing of the cake when it comes to the axes. It’s going to be fucken marvellous.

February 3rd

Brief update. I have now tracked 2 guitars on the first track and I have 2 more to go, but that won’t happen today as I’m leaving for Gothenburg tomorrow and need to pack my shit and all.

This stuff sounds massive as hell to say the least and I can’t wait until I have finished all my basic guitars so me and Mazza can start jerking off with some special de-luxe guitars for the finishing touch, but that’s not going to happen for a while since I’m pickier than ever with this recording and I want the 4 basic guitars to be nothing short of murderous before moving on to that. Having no deadline for the recording feels fucken awesome as we can try out a million ideas and whatnot whenever we feel like it. Once me and Mazza are sure the 4 rhythm-guitars are cast in stone it’s time for him to jump in and add the mentioned icing on the cake.

February 4th

Ok, so I managed to put down the remaining 2 guitars for the first track before heading to Gothenburg. 4 guitars down and a neat little harmony-thing on the 5th put in. I’m going to make sure it all sounds ok and is recorded properly according to Dan Swanö before moving on to the next one. But it seems like the first track is now completed as far as guitars goes. 1 down, 6 to go and then it’s the last one that has no guitars in it. Sounds mighty fine so far.

February 8th

Dan Swanö was just over checking that everything is recorded perfectly, which it of course was. So now I’m moving on to the 2nd track. Dan seemed impressed with what he heard and laughed very hard out of joy when one of the heavier Morbid Angel-inspired riffs was played to him. ” – Brutal”, I think that was his exact word.

February 9th

Just put down all of my parts for the second track. Feels good to have nailed the hardest track to play. Mazza’s got like 2 riffs to play whenever he’s got the time and then we’ll fuck around a bit more with it and see what we can come up with. I think I’ll start recording the 3rd one tomorrow.

February 10th

2 guitars down for the 3rd track now. No additions or anything in this one on these guitars so they sound like the demo so far. I have a few ideas for the 3rd and 4th guitar though which might turn out fine. It’s fucken killer to just put down the basic shit and then start to work on the details when those are done. I’ll continue with this track tomorrow.

February 12th

Guys… Me and Mazza have been sitting here for hours now, drinking beers and recording guitars… Mazza’s been doing some insane shit tonight…

[Lots of hours later:] Anyways, just added the 3rd and 4th guitar for track 3 and managed to come up with a neat little thing on the 5th guitar in this one. We must have been very drunk last night coz I hardly remember the shit we recorded when I heard it, haha…

[Even more hours later:] I just put down 2 guitars for track number 4. I’ll wait with the other 2 becoz I’m about to get drunk as a bÃ¥t now.

[Night:] Just completed the 3rd and 4th guitar for track number 4.

February 14th

Started putting down 2 guitars for the 5th track today and will continue with this one tomorrow. Mazza will come over and add some neat shit as well, which always is pleasant as he definitely knows what I wanna hear within the shit. Things go great at the TPH-camp and all the guitars should be done this week or early next week. Then we might have some other surprises for you…

February 15th

Me and Mazza just had a small sitting, going thru the completed stuff, adding stuff, removing stuff, increasing the quality of stuff. Before he came over I put down some serious guitars for track number 5 and I have like 50% of my stuff left to play in that one. 2 Ton-vocalist Mogge came over for a sec and thought the stuff sounded fucken excellent, which always is nice to hear even if we already know it’s domination at large. It’s turning out real fucken brutal this one, let us tell you that.

February 16th

Man, I have never been so slow with doing guitars for an album, seriously. I usually do the guitars in like 2 days and then Mazza does his solos/parts in an hour or so but this time it’s different. We don’t have any time-pressure so we can try out so much stuff until everything feels fine and I won’t have to play until my fingers bleed, which is very, very, very nice. This is the fun part since we can work so much with the material, it won’t necessarily sound exactly as it did when we got into the studio you know. We have changed some drums, removed some keyboards/added some, added drumbeats/jungleparts etc etc… I love this way of recording.

About the suprise, it’s nothing too fucken fancy but it feels really good to us and I’m so sure it’ll definitely bring in new levels to the music. So far, only me and Mazza knows about this. I like to keep Jörgen out of things, he works better that way and he doesn’t care anyways hahaha…

As soon as I get home today I’ll continue recording the 5th track, after that there’s only 2 more to put guitars on. Then I’ll go thru and edit what needs to be edited and that might take some time. Thing is, I’m attending fucken chef-school full-time, hanging with Hannastacia, drinking every weekend etc etc… It’s not too many hours put into the guitars as that. I just record when I feel like it and Mazza comes over when asked. It’s nothing like being locked up in a studio with a deadline knowing that I have to finish the guitars in like 2 days or so. I know how to play my shit, hell, I’ve been hearing this stuff for quite some time now you know. The fun part is that we now have all the time we need and it feels great to take it easy and be able to actually work on the stuff even more though it’s already considered “finished” you know.

This is without a doubt the strongest fucken material we have ever written. I know this will top HDCE material-wise, we’ll see what the production will be like but I have faith in Dan and his knowledge. As long as he doesn’t put any fucken reverb on the vocals we are all fine. I’m going to make sure he won’t so that’s cool. The stuff feels fucken excellent and I know that the guys who liked what we have done before will fucken love what this album will present. I think I’ll continue with track 5 now before going to the fucken hockey-game with Mazza tonight. The locals are playing and tonight is the debut for the new goal-keeper Trevor Kidd. Known from Toronto Maple Leafs. How the fuck they actually managed to get him over is beyond me but it’s fun as fuck. Fuck that now, here I go with the guitars.

[Later:] I managed to finish the 2 last rhythm-guitars for track 5 before I went to the hockey-game. Going to look thru them more closely tomorrow but they sounded good when I bailed. Soon we are finished with the guitars…

February 17th

Mazza was over earlier this evening and we managed to add even more neat guitars to the completed 5 songs recorded. I also did a rought take on one guitar for the 6th tune and will go thru that tomorrow and try to complete it. We are getting closer to finishing up the guitars… More info as we go along.

February 18th

So I finished the 4 guitars for track number 6 like 30 minutes ago. For some reason I managed to add some excellent shit to the riffing which wasn’t planned at all, but it sounds fucken great. There’s still a need to go thru all this shit after I’m done with the last song, to see if there’s anything sounding weird etc, but so far it sounds killer. I’ll move on to the last track (prolly the albums’ opening-track even) asap but now I have to get mighty drunk.

February 19th

I just put down the first guitar for the last track. I just wanted to play thru the song and get the feel of it so this is not the final take if you know what I mean. Damn, these guitars are soon done, weird…

I managed to add something neat to the 6th track I recorded yesterday as well, and it turned out real cool. I think I’ll have to bring Mazza over to play it though coz this riff is more his style, if you get my point. It’s more like a small solo-thing and he’s just so damn good at those so I better utilize his services for it. It sounds ok when I played it but he can do it better I’m sure. When this track is done, the fun stuff begins (and the not-so-fun stuff which is deleting some noises in between chugga-riffs and so on), which means I’ll go thru the stuff over and over, playing around with the guitar to see if we can find any places to put in some extra shit. I love that crap. It’s always fun to add stuff and make the songs kind of “more new” to ourselves as well. It’s already quite a difference thruout the material as compared to the demos and I know when we are done with the guitars completely, we can look back at it and just laugh at the fact we are goddamn brilliant. I can just imagine this shit with all the vocals and whatnot… J seems a bit anxious to do this too (which he’d never admit to, haha) and getting J’s voice on this will be a fucken joy to say the least. He’s probably better than ever…

I planned to watch a movie an hour ago. I saw like 30 minutes then I felt an urge to continue recording this shit. Now 2 guitars are completed and checked which feels great. Only 2 more guitars to go on this last fucker.

Mazza and Lord K[A bit later:] That’s that. All of the guitars are now recorded for the album. All that’s left now is to let Mazza come up with a few things where needed as well as for me to go thru all the songs with fresh ears to make sure everything sounds ok.

February 20th

I’ve now completed the editing work on 2 songs and it sounds fucken killer. All those weird noises in between riffs and shit gets deleted and it really makes a huge fucken difference. I’m off to do the third now and as it looks, I’ll be able to complete this editing-work on all songs within a few hours. After that I’ll go thru them and find some places to add some riffs and Mazza is free to join in any time.

February 22nd

On another note, I can’t wait to get home today to go thru the guitars again and see what I can possibly add to the shit. I’m actually playing something that could be called a solo, if you can believe that. Everyone’s going to think Mazza played it hahaha… But at least we know I pulled it off. The stuff Mazza’s been coming up with is just so excellent it’s fucken insane. It’s so cool getting the fat little dwarf over, telling him I need a fucken thing for this part, do something. 3 seconds later he’s pulled out some marvellous fucken thing out of his sleeve… We could go on like this for a fucken year if we wanted to but now there’s not too much stuff to go thru anymore. We are getting real close to finish up this bastard when it comes to guitars.

[About the electronic parts:] What we have accomplished on this coming piece is more of that. It’s more worked on, it’s better, it’s more chilling and it’s more beautiful. There’s alot of electronic parts that will send shivers down yer spine. We have some passages that are so fucken eerie I get shivers down my ass hearing them. Remember, this time I have worked with the actual program when composing, I didn’t do that for the previous album, we just changed some sounds in the studio on the completed parts. This time it’s all made with the shit, and it’s fantastic. There’s plenty of this stuff, combined with the most brutal riffs we ever wrote by far.

This album is nothing short of a true fucken piece of Domination De Luxe. I can’t wait until we can throw up a tune in advance for you guys. If we decide to do just that, haha… Some of the stuff will definitely turn some heads, I’m sure of that. Fuck, I wanna finish this album now and get it out and we are only like done with the guitars. Can’t wait to see what J and Jo will do with the material…

[After deciding K would not play bass on the album, still we kept it a secret who would end up doing it:] Let’s just say that I really wanted a real fucken bassist, a musician de luxe, for this material. Someone who lives and breathes bass and can add more to the material than just playing along to it. This guy can do that and he’s real fucken eager to start doing it since he’s been going thru the demos and everything the last 3 weeks. He’s going to record the bass at his (or the bands’ is more like it) own studio. You all prolly knows about this band, or you are retarded. I think he’ll do some insane shit here and there to be perfectly honest coz the guy is fucken ace at playing. I just told him I want a very cloink-cloink sound on most parts, haha… Just as we did on HDCE. It was never meant to be a secret really, I just want to suprise J coz he loves that shit hahaha…

Oh, and I almost forgot. I just went thru all of songs again (been sitting for something like 4 hours actually) and corrected some very small bits as well as adding a few things. I’m going to look these tunes over again tomorrow but as it looks, we are finished with the guitars now. There’s simply just nothing more to add to it as far as I’m concerned. It all sounds fucken great and with the addition of what I did today it really feels complete. That might change tomorrow though but it seems like it’s all there now. Fucken excellent.

February 23rd

Michael HÃ¥kansson of Evergrey was asked to do the bass for the album and he decided it’d be smart to be a part of the Domination.

Anypoo… I went thru the material again today and couldn’t find anything that I wanted to add/change except for a few small drum-things, but that doesn’t really count, haha… I did change a few words in some titles though and made a tentative running-order of the tracks for the album. I listened to the starts and finishes of each song and tried to come up with something that felt like it was flowing well and I think I got it. This might change later though when the vocals are there and everything but I definitely think (eh?) I have the opening-track. The final track is for sure though. I just can’t see how we can’t open the album with the song in mind coz that tune screams “opening-song for fuck’s sake!”. I promise you that this riff will fucken destroy you all…

February 24th

Reported by Mazza: Ok, me and K just went through the songs in the running order we have in mind for the album. We ended up adding some small stuff here and there, but now we think the guitars are done. Brutal stuff, to say the least. Even though we have yet to record bass and all the vocals, this shit sounds massive. Fuckin ace.

February 25th

Now it really seems like we can’t (of course we could) add anything more into the songs as far as guitar goes- There’s alot of stuff all over the place now and shit sounds massive. I still have to go thru the guitars 2 by 2 to make sure there’s no flaws in there somewhere but we can’t hear anything like that when all 4 guitars are playing so we should be ok. Bass should be starting next week. Dan is coming over today to make sure we get the correct file-format for Michael and everything then I’m sending the stuff to him for him to play around with.

February 26th

I’m sitting with the headphones on, listening thru all the stuff we have recorded the past weeks and it feels as we are completely done with the guitars now. There’s simply nothing more that needs adding as it all sounds marvellous. Dan is coming over tomorrow to make the files for the bassist so he can start working on the songs the coming week.

February 27th

While waiting for Swanö to show up I couldn’t keep my hands off the material and managed to add a little harmony-thing to one of the tracks. It turned out fucken killer and I have to face it, I’m playing a hella lot more solo-like stuff on this piece then I have ever done before on any TPH-album and I have to give credit to Mazza for that.

February 28th

I’m so longing to get the vocals on the material. I went thru the lyrics and how I have imagined them in the songs last night as well and I so know this will fucken rip shit apart. I’m very chuffed with the way the lyrics came about this time and it was easy to write them myself for this album.

About the melodies, and I have said this before… There’s alot of not very happy melodies thrown into the stuff and at the same time we got, without the shadow of a doubt, the most brutal effort we ever created. One of my fave-lines from Mazza when it comes to this album is when he said (while listening to a riff in one of the tunes) “Well, it’s not exactly like you go around laughing when you hear this stuff”. I dig that, coz it explains so well the feeling of the album. There’s tons of so fucken sad parts you might as well lie down and think about slitting yer wrists. There’s so many ambient passages that will make you go “Fuck, this is probably the sweetest fucken part I have ever heard”. Over and over again. And last of all, there’s so much brutality and groove incorporated you guys will fucken cry when you hear it. I have said this before as well; We knew topping HDCE would be quite a task but as soon as we started writing for the new one we knew this shit was going to be better. It’s an improvement, a step up the ladder, a incredibly mighty fucken piece if work. And we haven’t even started putting down vocals you know, still me and Mazza strongly feel this way. Just becoz we know the capabilities of J and Jo. They are the icing of this cake.

Only 2 weeks until J will lay down his vocals and hopefully Jo will do hers the weekend after that. Michael can prolly start recording bass this week, I just need Swanö to come over to sort the details for it. I wanna get this out so much it’s silly. I wanna hear your opinion of it and we wanna hear you say “Fuck guys, you were correct again”. Coz fuck knows we are.

Swanö is coming over today to sort the mixes for Michael the bassist so we are definitely rolling here. To the rest of the guys who posted recently, thanx alot for the kind words, I can assure you we won’t let you down coz if you don’t see this album as the best we ever did, you just lost yer taste completely.

Studio report: page 2, page 3, page 4