Armageddon March Eternal – Symphonies of slit wrists
About the recording
After the tragic tsunami disaster where Soundlab Studio owner Mieszko Talarczyk was one of the fatalities, we were forced to start thinking about where to record our next album. K and Dan Swanö met for some reason (not anything recording related) when Dan said that he could do it if we wanted to. It had never even crossed our minds to work with Dan again since we thought he didn’t have a studio any longer. Little did we know…
When we started recording this album K and Dan said “this is for Mieszko, let it take the time it takes to make it perfect in his honor”. Said and done. We recorded from the start of February to the end of May. This proved to be the ultimate way for TPH to work. With no deadline whatsoever, K and Petter did all of the guitars at K’s place and spent countless of hours on the guitars, trying out million of things everywhere after the basic rhythm guitars were done. Had we not recorded like this, “Armageddon March Eternal” would not be the complete monster it is. J‘s vocals were recorded in a studio in Stockholm over 2 days. Jo came to Örebro and worked with a vocal coach, Robban Eriksson, in his studio, bringing out the best of her
For the first time we decided to utilize the services of a real bassist and ended up in some drunken talks with Michael HÃ¥kansson (of Evergrey at the time). One thing led to another and after having computer problems one would only dream about, Michael recorded all of his parts at his place in Gothenburg.
After this, K and Dan spent a few months mixing and perfecting the material at Dan’s own Unisound studio, and the result is “AME”.
About the title
K came up with the “Armageddon March Eternal” part whereas a Hater named Derek Hamilton (who came up with most of the “HDCE” title as well) invented the subtitle “Symphony of slit wrists“, which K later on changed to “Symphonies of slit wrists“, making the 8 songs on the album representing the “symphonies” part.
About the cover
Marko Saarelainen used the “Symphonies of slit wrists” part for inspiration and just let it go from there. Pure genius.