Studio Report: The Occlusion
Written on 5 Apr 2025
While waiting for the original vocal recordings for Devoid of Life to complete, I already looked to the future and saw a much more electronics-based release. And thus in April 2011 already, it was time to start writing new songs! The first session resulted in two songs: Corporate Machinery (Uncreation) and Three-Step Oblivion (Confined), and incidentally while Uncreation was the first song written, it ended up the last to be released, as it wound up on the 2019 EP, Impenitence. Of course, the EP was supposed to be released earlier, but other things kept us busy meanwhile. After that things picked up on the Devoid of Life front, so no more songs were written for a while. In October 2011, there was again time and during those sessions three more songs were written: Transient Line (Glitch of Creation), Mechanicide and Organic Gears (Beyond Tolerance), and these songs really solidified the direction of the upcoming album. Heavy guitars with strong electronic beats, and a futuristic ambience. In early 2012, with Devoid of Life being in mixing phase by Teemu, there was plenty of time to focus on this album. So in the next 6 months, almost half of the total songs were written at a rough rate of one per month: Event Horizon (Devour the Being), Chronologic Disorder (Below Radar) and Corroded (Hindrance of Existence) gave a lot of new alternative directions for the album with many sampled drumbeats bringing another layer to the mix. And from March 2012 onwards, more songs took shape in the form of Demigenetic (Genetic Design), The Granules (Forgotten World), Mean Time To Failure (MTTF), The Observers, which were a bit more 'hammering' style songs. While there was a great bunch of songs already, it still felt like more were needed to give the album a good structure. So in the autumn of 2012, three more songs were devised: Control the Masses (Controlled), Legacy System and Flatlined. Now there was already a decent bunch! But the album felt a bit on the short side despite all the songs, so finally the last three songs were written around Feb-March 2013: Sparks of Ignition, The Origin, and a completely re-imagined remix of the Wasteland song Evolutionary Project. With all songs ready, it was time to start writing the lyrics. As there was a great many songs, and also interest from Mikko, we decided to split up the lyrics duties. Much of the first half of 2013 was spent writing the lyrics, until June 2013. And finally in June 2013, we got to the recording phase! As the album is almost entirely electronic-based, it was just a matter of recording all guitars and vocals. The guitars were recorded in short order during June 2013 and all 18(!) songs were thus ready instruments-wise. Recording the final vocals started in August 2013 and ran until early 2014. With the vocals ready, and preliminary mixing already done with the first batches of vocals, the album was ready for release in February 2014. == Equipment Guitars - Schecter Blackjack 007 - Focusrite Saffire Pro 40 - Toontrack EzMix Vocals are unfortunately unknown.