Even before “The Iron Cemetery” has reached the stores it
has gotten quite a bit of attention. Here you can experience the full story behind
the production of “The Iron Cemetary”.
18th of January the album was shown to the public
for the first time. Illusion Suite had an exclusive party for special invited
guests (press and celebrities of the Norwegian metal scene.)
Eternal Terror wrote an article about the event. After one
listen-through the magazine had the following conclusion: “If Illusion Suite
was not at the very top of Norwegian prog metal elite before they certainly are
now”. You can read the article in full here:
(The article is in Norwegian)
“The Iron Cemetery” has the following content:
Intro (instrumental): 00:55
Orpheus Quest: 05:03
Uni-Twins: 05:03
The Iron Cemetery: 05:35
When love fails: 04:58
Nero: 04:10
Nostradamus first prophecy: 04:23
The Ugly Duckling: 03:35
Premonition: 05:06
Orpheus Quest: This is a dialog between Orpheus and Hades.
Orpheus goes down into the underworld to save his wife that Hades kidnapped.
Uni-Twins: Two different versions of the same person from
different parallel universes tries to communicate with each other.
The Iron Cemetery: The concept is explained in more detail
later in this article.
When love fails: A story about a boy who is neglected by his
mother.
Nero: A simple story about a tyrant from ancient Rome? Or
does it have a symbolic dimension?
Nostradamus first prophecy: This song is telling the story
of the very first prophecy of Nostradamus.
The Ugly Duckling: This is the classic story about somebody
who is not “shining” until he finds the right people to appreciate his qualities.
Premonition: Based on the historical battle between Saladin
and the French Christian king that took place in the 12th century.
The album is quite short for a prog metal album. However,
the band emphasized quality before quantity and every inch of music on the
album has been carefully thought through.
The concept of “The Iron Cemetery”
Nicola Tesla was the scientist that started the building of
the Wardenclyffe tower. It was to be used in research, but in reality they
never even finished it properly. In Illusion Suite’s alternative reality the
tower generates electricity that collides with the atmosphere of the earth.
This causes an infectious disease that makes everything into iron to spread.
The cover design on the album is done by Anestis Goudas (
http://www.anestisgoudas.com/web/) and
the inspiration is taken from the ironized world that tesla’s failed project
left behind.
The production of “The Iron Cemetery”
The production of the album was particularly difficult
because some of the band’s material was torn apart as two of the members parted
from the band in the middle of the recording process.
Luckily Illusion Suite managed to turn a disadvantage into
an advantage in the search of a new angle to bring new creativity into the
project. Once the new constellation with the current members where formed new
creativity came into the project and the members made some of the best work
they had done so far.
The first chapter of the project where the drums that was
recorded sometime early in the year of 2011 by Roger Bjørge. This was before
the band split up.
Illusion Suite was left with drums and some vocal
arrangements as the guitar was removed. A new guitar with a different
arrangement that still fitted into the musical picture had to be made. This was
quite a puzzle, but over the course of four months the band managed to make
guitars that would be the new sound for Illusion Suite.
You can view a few clips from Kim Jacobsen’s
outrages guitar playing here:
Next up were the vocal arrangements. This was a process that
the band had worked on from the earliest phases of the songwriting, as it was
the most time consuming element of a prog music production.
The vocals took a slightly different direction than on the
previous album. The sound generally turned out rougher and with more power in
order to fit the “testosterone guitar”. In addition to the main vocalist, Bill
Makatowicz, Roger Bjørge also participated on both backup vocals and lead
vocal.
Here you can see a movie from the vocal recording. The video
also contains a full song from the upcoming album at the end.
The bass recording was being done simultaneously with the
vocal recording. The bass has got a central part in the music compared to what
is normal with other progmetal recordings. Several places on the album the bass
has come to play a major part, where it is leading on the music. Clips from the
process, showing Dag Erik Johnsen playing bass, can be viewed here:
Most of the strings were arranged after everything else was
in place. The synth arrangements on “The Iron Cemetary” binds everything
together, and it does so in a new way.
The strings on the album is probably one of the things that
extinguish this album the most from the previous one. There is a whole new
quality to the arrangement and the sound is more electrical than before. There is a synergy between the guitar and the
synth, and the synth like the guitar, has a leading role in the music.
The mixing process
The album was mixed and mastered at “Fascination Street
studios” in Sweden by Jens Bogren. The studio has done bands/artists like
Symphony X, Paradise Lost, James Labrie,
Soilwork, Opeth and Amon Amarth to mention a few. The band was very satisfied
with the final master and could not have hoped to get a better sound. Under you
can see a movie of some of the mixing process:
