Don't Turn These Up To 11, Part 2: Melodeath
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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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14tq-QRsVdo
Amon Amarth – “Versus the World”
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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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDQSLDZI9bs
At The Gates – “City of Screaming Statues” (Gardens of Grief EP)
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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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