» March 2nd 2006« The album is mastered    
       
 

Today, the album got mastered, which basically means that it runs through a big equalizer and exportated to be able to create cd's and vinyls from a master recording. It was mastered at Tailor Maid Production here in Stockholm, by Peter In de Betou.

A short correction: The studio we've recorded our album in is House of Voodoo Studio and nothing else.

   
       
    » February 17th 2006« First mixdown complete    
       
  Last Saturday, February the 12th, Fredrik Folkare started to mix the new album in Chrome Studios and yesterday, we all got the first basic mixdown to listen to. Now, we will decide what we want to change, sound-wise and level-wise to proceed for next mixdown, which hopefully will be the final.    
       
    » January 27th 2006« The beast IS unleashed - Part II    
       
 
I was struggling as hell during the vocal session. I felt all the way that something was missing within the levels of the listening, but I just couldn't put my bony finger on what it actually was. My voice was acting wierd and sounded more like a mixture of Tom G. Warrior, John Tardy and Schmier than the usual me. Three great vocalists, and it sounded kinda cool of course, but somehow it was lacking of that typical Necro-feeling.

When we where all done, Sebastian entered the vocalroom to dub up a chorus and I was thinking -Fuck me, he sounds raw as hell. I entered the vocal-crib straight after him to add an missing growl and suddenly it sounded great. The levels where slightly different and it made it feel ten times better than before. After singing a verse all over on the last song I truly felt that I was home again.

I looked at our great engineer Anders Bentell and asked him if he understood what this was meaning. -Eeah, I think so, he answered with a crocked smile. -We have to do the whole fucking shit all over again, I laughed.

So we did, and everything turned out the way we wanted it to do after that. I was back!
Tobias Sidegård 060127

    
       
    » January 13th 2006« The beast is unleashed...    
       
   

Ain't this a fine day (Friday the 13th) to start recording some evil vocals? The day in honour, we had a very special guest in the studio. Old guitar player Martin Halfdan came by, with a case of beer, to say hello. He also helped us out a bit with some proof-reading of our lyrics and so on.

If "Bloodhymns" was an explosive hard riffing album, this new one, "Hrimthursum", will be a much more cold and epic one. This time we will spend some extra time with the vocals. Try out a few more voices, to put

    
 
Tobias screaming out his bestial lust...
    
  some extra dark and evil feeling to the album. The vocals are the only thing that remain to record now and Tobias will record vocals every other day until it's time for the next step in the process, the mixdown.      
 
...into some quality piece from Neumann.
    
    » January 11th 2006« Female visit    
       
 
Female opera soprano Sandra (the black horror) has been contacted for dubbing up some choirs and shit. She is an old friend of Tobias and they used to work toghether in Therion a few years ago. She is a hundred procent professional vocalist and we use her voice to put some extra spice to a few epic parts of the album.
    
       
    » January 10th 2006« A non distorted session    
       
 
A short session today. All the non distorted harmonies were made by Sebastian, both on acoustic and electric guitar. The harmonies gives an eerie feeling to the songs in a truly disturbing way.
   
       
    » January 9th 2006« Bits and pieces    
       
 
Johan comes by the studio to make some small bits and pieces to make all his parts for this album complete.
    
       
    » January 7th 2006« The intro is ready    
       
 
Finishing the intro.
    
       
    » January 6th 2006« A vision turns into an intro    
       
 
Tobias and Anders Bentell start to work on an intro to the album. Tobias has a vision and the two try to recreate that atmosphere. A whole day in the studio is spent by making wierd and horrifying noices and sounds.
    
       
    » January 5th 2006« Second day of Johan's guitars    
       
 
Rythm beserk Johan finishes the remaining rythms and a few leads in true blasphemic manners. Johan contributes with tantrum and destruction. His unleashed rythms gives the final last that the songs need.
    
       
    » January 4th 2006« More guitars    
 
Johan entered the studio in the evening time. We started to look for a guitar sound that would suit the sound we found for Sebastian's guitars earlier.
It didn't take to long and it came out quite naturally. Johan started to play and it was like WHOOAA! It started to sound incredible. Johan and Sebastian are like Yin and Yang with the guitars. They are ones total opposites, but fit perfect together. Johan's style of playing is much dirtier, yet his timing is perfect. Four songs where tracked and the session will continue tomorrow.
      
 
Johan recording his rythm parts his first day.
    
       
    » January 3rd 2006« Samples continue    
       
 
Tobias and Sebastian continued the work with "decoration" of the songs. On this album, we have a lot more opportunities and time to deal with things like this. Of course this doesn't mean that Necrophobic will sound different from earlier albums. Don't worry. We whould NEVER use keyboards etc. in a gayish sort of way.
    
       
    » January 2nd 2006« Samples    
       
 
Today we started to rig the studio for some sampleworks and midi-stuff. It actually took a while. Let's face it, samplers and similar things where never meant to get into the hands of a couple of metalheads. It's just too complicated you know. Anyhow, after a while things actually started to work as we wanted to and we could continue the night with looking through old samples of ghastly and horrifying sounds.
    
       
    » December 29th 2005 « Bass-day 2, inspired by the blizzard    
       
   
In the early evening, there was a raging blizzard outside. You could almost hear the mighty Hrimthursum whisper about the holocaust through the icecold winds. Of course it was only inspiring and it put us in the right mood for another session in the studio.
Today Tobias finished his work with the bass. We’re all really happy with the way it all came out. Tighter and rawer than ever. When you think of Tobias, you usually think of his evil schreking vocals, but he is also one of the most skilful bassplayers in the whole genre. Thats for sure...
   
 
Anders Bentell (engineer) and Tobias getting
in the right mood for the studio night shift...
    
       
    » December 28th 2005 « Time for the thundering bass    
       
 
When entering the studio, we found sound engineer Anders Bentell sleeping on the sofa. Not much to do but to wake him up to start today’s session.
We started the day with looking for a raw and crispy bass-sound. One hour later we found it in a old vintage Marshall guitar amp. The night turned out really good and more than half of the songs where recorded. Tobias will continue to record the remaining songs with bass tomorrow, so stay tunes...
     
  Tobias looking evil with his Rickenbacker bass.    
       
    » December 27th 2005 « Sebastian recording his leads    
       
 
In 3 hours all the guitars solos were recorded. There will be more solos on this album compared to "Bloodhymns". Necrophobic never use solo parts just because a metal song should hav a solo. This time, the instrumental parts really improved with some good solos. Sebatian's style has developed inte a more tecnical, yet improvised style. He never tries to show off, he rather tries to do whats right for each song. The solos on this album is the expression of dark wicked mind.
      
  Ear-ripping leads from fingers, fast as hell!    
    » December 23rd 2005 « Sebastian recording the remaining rythms    
       
 
Sebastian finished of the remaining songs on the album. The sound is great and we are very happy with his performance on this album. A problem on earlier albums have been that his guitars tended to sound a bit to "well played". This time the guitars sounds dirtier, but still better played than before.
    
       
    » December 22nd 2005 « Recording of the guitars    
       
   

After yesterdays preparing for the crushing hard guitar sound, it is now time to start recording the guitars and Sebastian is first up.
At 10:00 CET (+1), Sebastian entered the studio to work a full studio day. Reports say that engineer Anders was really getting into the music and was headbanging a lot.

Sebastian worked very fast, yet focused, and managed to lay down more or less 50% of his rythm guitars and will continue tomorrow again. Stay tuned!

    
 
Guitar demon Sebastian at work with one of his
many Flying V-guitars.
    
       
    » December 21st 2005 « Time for the guitars    
       
 

This evening, it was time to start recording the guitars. Fredrik Folkare came by to help out finding the raw and evil guitar sound together with Anders Bentell and lead guitarist Sebastian Ramstedt.

Sebastian choosed to bring his fine, quite new, guitar top, which he are very pleased with, together with one of his many Gibson Flying V's and also his Ibanez Les Paul. They all worked for three hours before they we're pleased with the sound and the actual recording will start tomorrow, December 22nd.

      
 
Sebastian's Flying V and guitar top.
    
       
    » December 18th 2005 « Drum tracks finished    
       
 
A few sticks shorter and some damaged cymbals later, the spread out drum sessions have now ended and all the drum tracks for the new album are finished. Due to a hectic life with a lot of work, recording the drums this way was the best solution. The result is sounding killer and we can't wait until next sessions starts, which will be guitars.
The guitars will start now on Wednesday, December 21st, with setting the raw and evil sound to start with. Sebastian is first up to record all his rythms, so stay tuned for a report about that in just a few days.
    
       
    » November 26th 2005 « In the studio    
       
   

Today, we started the recording of the new, fifth full length album. We will try to run a regular update regarding the progress of the recording process right here on the website. No titles of either the album or any songs will be released at this moment, but as soon as it's time for it, you will get the information here.

There are a lot of new things happening right now. The studio we're using for this album is a total unknown studio. It's called House of Voodoo Studio and we will work

    
 
The studio drums
    
 

with new persons as well. The engineering parts will be done by Anders Bentell and Fredrik Folkare (the later known for being guitarist and producer of Unleashed).

Like always, the first thing is to record the drums and that is what's happening for the moment. We will work on shorter recording sessions in stead of full time studio days. In short, the recording of drums include setting the right sound, setting the BPM for each track and to record the drum tracks.

      
     
Fredrik Folkare and Anders Bentell