»Notes: Breaking Point

Before recording, this song was ocalled 'Spirit Crusher' because it used a drum beat which I had copied from the song of the same name by Death. However, I later removed this drum beat so it didn't make much sense to keep the name aside from it being already the name of a far better song by a band I really like.

I ignored the warnings and was duly punished when after nine years of passably faithful service, the old PC now designated as the 'recording PC' decided to finally give up the ghost. Whilst I was tinkering with the mix before planning to record vocals, the recording computer had a catastrophic failure and the old, old motherboard inside it (we're talking Socket A Athlon 1.2ghz here...) was irrevocably broken. Needless to say, I was quite concerned that I had lost this song and would have to re-record it, which would have been tiresome beyond measure. Fortunately this was not the case and I was able to record the vocals and finish off the song on the 'main' computer which reminded me how awful it was trying to record music in the box room as opposed to my bedroom.

I wasn't terrifically happy with the guitar sound on this but no amount of tweaking could achieve anything more satisfying. There is a growing need to get hold of a proper microphone and likely a mixer to go with it to record the guitar amp in the traditional way as opposed to via emulated line outs. Either that or just buy a better amp. Both of those scenarios would require me to get a job that actually pays.

Whilst the guitars were something of a disappointment, the bass turned out much better, no doubt thanks to the bass amp and probably the bass itself being higher quality than the guitar set up. I am getting better at tweaking the controls on the bass amp and was pleased to get a nicely compressed, punchy sound on the bass which on the whole manages to be audible in the mix without obliterating everything with low frequencies. The nice sound on the bass gave me more confidence to perform some bass riffs that were more distinct over the guitar din during the mid-tempo sections.

I wasn't particularly happy with the guitar solos in this song, I should drastically cut down on them and think of some other way to add interest to songs.

The inspiration for the mid-tempo section came in part from the Akercocke song 'The Promise' from which I heartily ripped off the drum beat. The similarities end with the drum beat really, I just wanted to include a less frantic section in the song to provide contrast with the otherwise relentless thrash attack.

I really should put more thought into lyrics before starting to record songs. I left thinking about what the lyrics were going to be until after the old PC had imploded and I thought I'd lost the song. I had a hard time coming up with the lyrics, struggling to think of anything that has been pissing me off that would actually translate well into a metal song, or any song for that matter. At something of a loss and not wanting to take a step backwards and just knock up some generic lyrics about war or something, I decided to fall back on that old chestnut of resentment, The Job Centre. This will have to be the last song I write about my friends at the DWP because it could become a tiresome bore and besides, I don't intend to go back to the Job Centre if I can help it, and I can't keep drawing off fuckings that were dealt back in March.

I've currently got a slight fascination with outros and made more of an effort on this song to sustain the interest in the song after the final verse without resorting to more stupid solos.

The guitar noise in the outro was intended as yet another reference to Slayer, in particular the outro to the song 'Hardening of the Arteries', the last track on 1984's Hell Awaits. Yep, keeping my influences as fresh as ever with another reference to a song from twenty five years ago. Hey, it could be worse, I could have covered Creeping Death.

These are mostly here for my convenience.