Video created by Tuomas Kurikka and Patrik Nuorteva of Riivata Visuals
Guitarist Buster Odeholm feedback on Ashen:
“Ashen is the loudest, most distorted & abrasive HLB album but. It is the sound of explosive devastation being unleashed.
“While you write one thing solely by your self, you possibly can solely go as far as figuring out what works and what does not. If in case you have different folks concerned, you possibly can go additional. Take away stuff that doesn’t serve the songs, though perhaps you felt it was good while you wrote it or put plenty of time into it. Additionally, when you’ve gotten different folks concerned, it is simpler to understand if a selected riff or a track works as a result of you do not have that clear overview in the event you work alone. Because it’s collaborative, I believe this album is manner higher as a result of we’ve eliminated a bunch of bullshit that I’d in all probability have stored.
“After I began writing the album Calle Thomér wasn’t imagined to be concerned, we hadn’t talked about it, no less than. However since we began working collectively on different bands or folks’s music, I noticed what he did to songs and thought it could possibly be fascinating. So I requested if I may ship him one monitor and let him do no matter he wished to it simply to see what would occur, and he stated sure. So he did that, and the music turned out nice. I believe we did that for all songs besides one. So this opened the doorways to additional collaboration. And that is once I contacted Timothé Baqué of No Oath / Fashionable Nihilism Recordings.
“I gave him free rein to do no matter he wished to the music. As an alternative of fixing preparations like I assumed he would, he added synths. He additionally sampled the stems and created new sounds, which was very fascinating. After that, I went by means of and eliminated stuff and stored the sounds I appreciated. I additionally used a few of his results on different components the place they have been becoming.
“Ashen is the most effective illustration of HLB up to now. It has that “elastic” feeling that I am after in music. It has tempo adjustments that do not really feel like tempo adjustments and key adjustments with out the sense of fixing the important thing. It is also quite a bit groovier than our newest albums. I in some way felt that groove sounded too “comfortable” within the final two albums, or no less than on Abyssal. It is important to acknowledge that what folks need on this style of music has quite a bit to do with groove, and that’s tremendous by me. I like that too. I’ve made many albums on my own doing precisely what I need. With Ashen, we have honed in on what we wish to be nice about HLB. It is also the primary HLB report in over 10 years with actual drums.
“Except for it being our first collaborative effort there are another issues that differ a bit. I recorded vocals with Filip remotely. We used a software program referred to as Audiomovers which helps you to report enter from another person’s DAW. So we set it up so Filip may report in his house studio and the sound could be recorded straight into my DAW. Not solely did it save time, it’s only a extra enjoyable manner of recording. I additionally recorded all the drums in our rehearsal house, and edited most of it on my laptop computer whereas on tour.”
