Studio: Video Blog part 2

Check out Part 2 of our video blogs that show the making of our new album "St. Petersburg". This blog features the making of the song "Empress Catherine the Great". Enjoy!!

Studio: Video Blog part 1

Check out our first Video Blog of us in the studio working on our new record. Cameras were there, hilarity ensues.

Enjoy!
- System

Studio: Day 9

We finished about 75% of the vocals today. They're sounding great. We finished up vocals for our songs "Road of Life", "Empress Catherine the Great", and "Blood and Iron"... We already finished "Hero City", "The Bronze Horseman" and "Silver Age". We still need to finish "Honor Amongst Thieves" and "Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood".

It is all sounding awesome! we're really pumped so far. Only about one more day of tracking left, maybe two... we'll see. But it will all be done soon!

We'll also post up the track list for the album really soon. We're still trying to figure that one out.

- System

Studio: Day 8

Today was a good day, as usual. We got all the guitars 99% finished... I say 99% because we'll probably remember something we missed at some point... and we finished a lot of the vocals.

We've got a few more days of actual tracking to do, and then we'll be mixing.

We've been sorta mixing the record as we go, so its taking more time, but it leaves less work until the end. We're doing things really different this time, we're not rushing, yet we've set a time limit, and we're doing our best to finish it on time. We do not really record more than one or two days a week, so it gives us time to clear our heads, and that is something that is really important. If you're in the studio every day the songs start all just losing their vibe, and we've done that in the past where we lived in a studio for 6 months... and doing things this way is just a better working environment for us. I really think it will show when people check out the record.

That is all for now! cheers

- System

Studio: Day 7

Today we had another guest in the studio. My good friend Laura. We needed some piano parts on the new album, and she is amazing. I've worked with her before, producing a demo for her a few years back, so I knew we needed to get her on the album.

The song we had her play piano for, is the new song "Church of the Savior on Spilled Blood". Her part is the intro to the song, and its something i've had in my head the whole time, since i have written the song... it eventually drove me crazy, and I said "we need a piano intro to this song" so it came to be, and sounded perfect, just like I heard it in my head... so to say I'm happy would be an understatement.

While we had Laura in the studio, we decided to put her to work again, and we decided it would be awesome if she could lend some vocal work to the album. We didn't plan on it until she was there. She is a great vocalist, and Luca said "well i think female vocals would sound really good on the ending of 'Empress'"... he was referring to "Empress Catherine the Great", one of our new songs. So we decided to try it out, we got her in the vocal booth, and wow! it sounded amazing! we're just as happy with the vocals as the piano work.

Basically the album is coming together really nicely. So nicely that we are in fact going to be giving the album away for free... yes FREE. We are going to be putting the album online for download. Everyone will be able to download it, share it with everyone they know all for free. If people really like, they will be able to donate money with their credit cards via paypal. We're expecting to not make the money back we paid to record this, but at this point we do not care about money... if it was about money we would not have been doing this for 10 YEARS now! We really just feel this is the best NAR ever, and we really want to get our new work out there, to all of you, and in these hard times, not everyone has money to drop on a new album... So as a thank you to all the fans we've made and kept for the past 10 years, we want you all to have it and not have to spend your money. Just come out to a show when we're playing in your area, or even something as little as emailing us and letting us know what you think of the new album would be great.

More studio updates coming soon!

- System