Gear and a Viking Metal Primer

Alright well, there's not much reason to do this, as my gear hasn't changed since last time, but here it is!

My room was so clean just two days ago! Now it's gross. Honestly took these on my way out the door this morning. Please don't judge.

I had an AWESOME night of recording. I feel much better now. And I can tell you with certainty that I'm now making a straight-up old school VIKING METAL album.

For those unfamiliar with the genre, Viking Metal is, well, metal about Vikings. It technically started as an offshoot of black metal, but it can be in a pretty wide variety of styles. For mine, though, I'm shooting for the really early sound exemplified by Bathory - a one-man band made up of a dude named Quorthon (may he rest peacefully in Valhalla). I used to listen to the album "Hammerheart" before track meets in high school.

Here's the best example I have of old-school Viking metal:

As you'll notice, the production is pretty crazy. Ridiculous amounts of distortion, and the drums are huge but sort of buried at the same time. That's the plan for me as well. Last night I recorded 15 minutes of drums and basically wrote all the guitars. Tonight should be another 15 minutes of drumming, then filling in ALL the guitars and bass. Would be awesome to get all of that finished and have 4 days for keyboards, vocals, and mixing.

I'm also thinking this won't be under the Strange Battery name. The opportunity to give myself a Viking name is just too great to pass up. I don't know how, but I'll need some artwork like this, too:

I realize I may be the only one that enjoys this album. LIKE I CARE.