Heartland

It's been a while since the last one, so...

Motz, by way of a dodgy MySpace blog announcement wrote: After much procrastination and gratuitously repetitive vocal takes, it's done. The title grammar's awful, but the music contained herein is much more mitleidsvoll. Mitliedsvoll, if you will. No, it doesn't matter.

1. Altar for an Atheist - A 9 o'clock alarm call from the choir invisible

2. Guidance - The 50¢ tour of Paradise [before we lost to your goalkeeping]

3. Objects, Objections - I don't think we're in Eden anymore...

4. Snowblind - Was kam before the storm...


For those of you who saw the battle of the bands material, this is not it. That's coming shortly. It is, however, rather similar. But happy and stuff. It is, however, still contemplative, conscientious and confusing. The drum machine is still on speed and the bass is still racing, but the fuzz guitars are hiding in the corner for when the prozac runs out...

x

Mostly a sorely needed proper recording for some older material, brought together more coherently. Available for streaming and individual download at www.MySpace.com/VennUK or all tracks as a zip from YouSendit .

Enjoy

Positively nicked for reviewing pleasure!

IZ.

I heard some or all of these before, I'm sure of that

But I find that this is, quality-wise, very good. Maybe not a pristine production, but I don't think that was what you intended in the first place, and I for one will not expect it from someone who has to make do WITHOUT an SSL desk.

A nice, clean sound, good balancing of instruments, nothing wrong there.

For my taste, the vocals are a bit loud/soft sometimes. I mean that when you record the vocals, try to a) stand still or b) when you sing louder, lean your head a bit away from the mike.
Now you have this heavily varying loudness on the vocals, which is a bit annoying IMO. Maybe some (more) vocal compression's the ticket, but don't overdo that.

What this reminds me of, first The Cure (Killing an Arab deffo!), and some SSS, and for the ones that know him, Spizzenergi.

It sound really old skool, maybe a bit 'of the same', but I like it!

Keep up the good job, and teach me some trick someday

IZ.

I've been looking forward to this. I loved </comfort> and have listened to "Passive Aggressive" quite a lot.

The production and sound has definitely improved.

I liked the synth in the background on “Alter of an Atheist� and the Egyptian sounding guitar solo at the end, the vocals could have been louder though. 3/5

“Guidance� sounds tighter than ever and is still my favourite Venn song (up there with “Passive Aggressive�), again though, the vocals could have been louder. 5/5

I clicked on “ich die wahl h„tte� and it was, er, “Alter for an Atheist� again… was that supposed to happen? 3/5

“Objects, Objections� had some interesting sounds on it, a bit of a throwaway track though, no offence. 2/5

And then comes along “Snowblind�, which sounds bloody great. The guitar sounds like the sort of guitar only found in early 1980s Goth and pop music, which is a plus, and the loud chorus sounds Cure-ish. 4/5

nick the stripper wrote: I clicked on “ich die wahl h„tte� and it was, er, “Alter for an Atheist� again… was that supposed to happen? 3/5

That could have been the Playlist File, which then starts all tracks in correct order, eg Altar... first.

IZ.

nick the stripper wrote:“Objects, Objections� had some interesting sounds on it, a bit of a throwaway track though, no offence. 2/5

None taken, tis a bit of an odd one - hoping it'll work better live than on record, tbh. If there wasn't a far more sinister master plan going on (;)), I'd perhaps have put another song on in its place.

Thanks to both of you for taking the time to listen and providing feedback. Glad you like it and the constructive comments are most appreciated

Edit'd for additional geekery:
Josh, that was indeed the playlist file. Sorry for the confusion
Iz (and indeed anyone else who cares): all tracks hit the DAW (Sonar 5 LE) via a MOTU UltraLite. Guitars were tracked through a Marshall MG30DFX and picked up with an SM58 (also responsible for some vox). Vocals were, in the main, recorded with the holy grail of my (meager ) studio, a Rode NT1-A. Monitoring was provided by some (fairly) old (very) dodgily positioned Mordaunt Shorts (I forget which model). The mastering process was somewhat lazy, since I was sick of having these tracks lying around and blocking work on Bible Black and Photographs in Monochrome (The aforementioned "far more sinister master plan" ).

regardless the way it is recorded it's good
i like your singing also

As I'm in a fuckin' stinking mood, I'll listen to them tomorrow and let you know my thoughts as always.

Keith.

Cheers, Keith. Hope whatever it is clears up asap