. . .
In the second installment of this 4-part series, we’ll look at some melodeath mistakes, and we’ll also mourn a victim of the Loudness War.
1. Amon Amarth – anything recorded before Versus the World
Studio Abyss produced the exact same sound on every album from the day it opened to the present day. It’s a sound as distinct and unvaried as the infamous Sunlight Sound. The Studio Abyss sound worked for Immortal and Hypocrisy, but it robbed Amon Amarth blind. It didn’t do Dimmu Borgir any favors either. The drum sound isn’t the problem, because it’s almost universally good, nor is the mix an issue either. No, the problem is the actual guitar tone, which never fails to be anything but brittle, trebley, piercing, and crystalline all at the same time. How did they pull this off? I’ve listened to probably 15 albums that I know were recorded at Studio Abyss, and they all have the same guitar tone.
Amon Amarth needs to sound like a horde of charging Vikings, but it also needs enough clarity to let the glorious melodies come through. Amon Amarth + Studio Abyss meant clarity but no horde of charging Vikings.
Based on interviews with Chronicles of Chaos and metaleater.com in 2003 and 2004 respectively, Amon Amarth changed studios because
Peter Tägtgren
Amon Amarth – “Bastards of a Lying Breed” (The Crusher)
VS.
Amon Amarth – “Versus the World”
. . .
2. At The Gates – The Red in The Sky Is Ours
There are a few positive things that can be said for this album, such as that the mix is clear and the cello tone is gorgeous. It also captured the weird, unsettling melodies that At The Gates specialized in up until Slaughter of the Soul. Everything else about it is just wrong. The guitars are thin, tinny, and sound lo-fi. The drums patter like raindrops on a windowsill.
Like the Sunlight Sound bands, At the Gates were burly and mean, but they happened to cut their tracks with a bit more melody. They needed a thick, mean sound. Red had its claws torn out by the shoddy production job. Red sounds far, far worse than the preceding EP, Gardens of Grief, which was recorded at none other than . . . Sunlight Studios. Hell, Thomas Lindberg’s obscure first band, Grotesque, got a better recording job from some no-name studio than At the Gates did on an album funded by Peaceville.
What happened with Red? Sunlight was booked for months ahead when the band wanted to record, so they went to an expensive local studio that had no experience recording metal. According to a 1993 interview with Finland’s Carrion Zine #3, the studio engineer showed the band “which buttons to press” and then “rarely showed up”. The band hated the studio and didn’t think the recording was ideal but was still proud of it because they did the engineering work. In all fairness, it does sound pretty good for a bunch of guys with no experience manning the boards, and it’s not unlistenable. Even so, it’s hard not to listen to the Gardens EP and wonder how much greater Red could’ve been if it were recorded at Sunlight.
At The Gates – “City of Screaming Statues” (The Red in the Sky is Ours)
VS.
At The Gates – “City of Screaming Statues” (Gardens of Grief EP)
. . .
3. Crown ov Horns – Infernvs Dominatvs
No gripefest about recording quality would be complete without mentioning the Loudness War. If any of you don’t know what the Loudness War is, it means that all the instruments and sounds on an album are mixed as loudly as possible. Search Wikipedia for the Loudness War or google Metallica’s Death Magnetic Loudness War and you’ll find information on the subject. The clipping in parts of this album is extreme, but by no means am I suggesting that it’s the most egregious example of an earsplitting mix. As the infamous saying goes, a single death is a tragedy but a million deaths is a statistic. The Loudness War bothers me, but no pun intended, it’s just become noise to me because it’s out of my control and because it has produced so many casualties. You can swap dozens if not hundreds of albums for this one, and the criticism still applies.
Mix everything loudly enough and eventually the music will start clipping. Skip ahead to about 1:48 in the track below and you can hear clipping. It sounds like the speakers are popping and might explode. It’s painful to listen to, and it sounds awful. The cymbals in particular are bothersome. They feel like someone’s stabbing me in the eardrum. It’s really a shame because, aside from that, Infernvs Dominatvs is a pretty good album.
The sound of the instruments on this album is pretty good, especially considering that the label, Evil Dead Production, is a small Malaysian label. Since the album was released last year, the source recordings must be available for a quick remix. Infernvs deserves that.
When you play this song, I recommend keeping the volume low.
Crown ov Horns – “Dethrone the Emperor” (Infernvs Dominatvs)
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The loudness war bucks the hell out of me, too.
When you go back and listen to well-recorded albums from the 70’s, like Led Zeppelin’s IV, you can turn them up, and they sound great. They also don’t hurt your ears, even if you’re playing them on headphones. But if you listen to Death Magnetic (probably the loudest record ever recorded) you have to keep the volume low, and it sounds like shit no matter what volume.
But despite that, I’m so accustomed to loud albums, since just about everything is loud today, that an overly quiet record bothers me now. Not as much as an over-loud one, but I just wish I didn’t have to have my finger on the volume control when I hit shuffle.
You can thank jukeboxes and the radio for that, I guess. I wish it had never started.
Uh, it *bugs* the hell out of me. (That was weird.)
I agree with this column more than with the Black Metal one (though I didn’t massively disagree with much of that either), in particular the bit about Amon Amarth.
I haven’t heard the re-masters though. Anyone got an opinion on their sound?
does of Crown ov Horns actually sound like that or is youtube adding clipping and artefacts?
Another great installment that I completely agree with.
The Amon Amarth example perfectly shows that Metal, and Death Metal especially, needs a significant low end rumble. What good is a voice that sounds as if recorded by an angry demon through a buried tomb when the rest of the music is flat and brittle?
Unfortunately it seems as if the Loudness War is lost already. Studies show that kids reared on MP3s actually prefere the sizzling sound over uncompressed music:
http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/03/11/153205/young-people-prefer-sizzle-sounds-of-mp3-format
*Sigh*
Yeah, they do. and I did too for a long time. Until I read about the loudness war, and figured out that you’re supposed to play the quiet recordings louder. If someone would show them *HOW* to listen to a good recording, some of them might change their minds.
True, if you learn to appreciate old Jazz recordings (or stuff like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath) on heavy viny the static hiss and distorsion of compressed music becomes almost unbearable.
Behemoth’s Demigod is also an unfortunate victim of the loudness war – on headphones the cymbals just degenerate into noise. Otherwise an almost perfect metal album.
When listening to newer Metallica production, I find that adjusting my volume to “0″ helps.
*snicker*
+100
I have always thought that Red In The Sky… could benefit from some sort of remastered re-release. I know dick about sound engineering stuff but does anyone know if it would be possible to give this classic a far better, guitar and bass heavy sound? I know these guys have stated that they actually didn’t want this record to have the same Sunlight style sound that was all too popular at the time, but I also know that they’re not happy with this tin-can result that sounds like it was mixed by a brain-dead laboratory ape. Assuming someone has access to the master tapes, Is this a possibility? I mean, I would fucking buy that shit.
if they have access to the master tapes, I believe it’s possible to remix, but there could still be issues with the quality of the recorded results. Not metal but The Stooges’ Raw Power had a controversial mix job by David Bowie. Iggy Pop later remixed it.
A simple remaster might be enough – there’s a huge difference between the original master of Rust in Peace and the remaster.
I’m not in favor of this, but they could rerecord instruments or entire tracks. If they rerecorded only the guitars and remixed all of it, that might be enough.
Iggy may have remixed Raw Power, but the original release is the sought after version, because it isn’t fried.
I definitely agree on Red. Personally I find the damn thing unlistenable.
Red has some of the very best ATG songs but yeah, I have a hard time reaching for it over most of their other records.
I typically go vehemently against the whole rerecording of albums but I might actually like to hear the result of just the guitars on Red being rerecorded. This would be more of a plan b in my fantasy. That is, if they couldn’t tweak the originals to sound wayyy better. It’d have to be done just right though. NO added flourishes or changed up thrashier riffs a la Slaughter era stuff. The same exact riffs, rerecorded. And a tweak of the drums to beef it up.
I get that they probably would never ever get Alf on board with rerecording his old riffs or having someone else do just that so it’d probably never work. But man would that be the best.
to me the rough sound of The Red… has a bit of charm, but I would probably listen to the album more if it had Gardens of Grief’s mix. On another Grotesque-related note, I’d be pretty psyched for a remix/re-recording of Spiritually Uncontrolled Art by Liers in Wait. That EP’s got some of the most violent death metal riffs ever laid down in Sunlight, but the thinnest guitar tone to ever come from there as well. Maybe Necrolord was trying to negotiate his band’s distance from the black metal aesthetic.
While Red’s production may not be great, it certainly has the absolute best song writing At The Gates ever did. Alf Svensson was a fucking genius.
I also always think that album compliments Dissection’s The Somberlain very well.
At the gates apparently thought alf’s contributions were just too weird for the band. I’m kinda torn by the whole thing. If he stays, I doubt they release terminal spirit disease, which had gorgeous melodies but was conventional, and we certainly don’t get slaughter. With fear is probably better and weirder due to alf (it was pretty good to begin with). As to what comes after with fear is anyone’s guess.
If alf stays though we probably don’t get the oxiplegatz nuttery. Even if i didn’t like that band, i want it to exist just because i think metal is improved by it’s very existence. We need unique bands and experiments like that.
I never had much of a problem with Red’s sound, it’s not perfect but doesn’t put me off listening…I actually think the production on the second album is worse.