April 01, 2007

Album Update

A bunch of people have written to ask what the new album (These Ones Are Bitter) is like. That's a hard question to answer because I'm about the last guy who could answer that objectively. Using my past records as a measuring stick, it's more in the melodic/poppy My Brain Hurts camp than, say, Wiggle or Emo. Lyrically, most of the songs involve the ugly break up of a relationship (hence the title) though there a couple of sidetracks. It's very polished and produced but not really in a Bark Like A Dog way. I think "Bitter" is more aggressive than that one. I Love Bark like A Dog but this one has a different feel and sound.

When I say the album is "polished" I mean the performances are really tight and there was a significant amount of time spent on the tracking as compared to almost all of the other albums I've worked on (because we got most of the studio time for free...). When I say it's "produced" I mean there are rhythm guitar parts that play off each other more than just playing the exact same parts, and there are a lot of little ambient guitar parts and layered backing vocals, things like that. Basically, there was a ton of time and effort put into the recording as compared to any other record I've done and I think the songs come off much better for it.

There are fourteen songs on the album. Mike Kennerty and Chris Gaylor from the All-American Rejects played guitar and drums respectively (Mike also recorded most of the album and produced it). Dan Andriano from the Alkaline Trio played bass. The tracking and mixing should be done by the end of the month and released in early June.

Posted by benweasel at 08:18 AM