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Covered In Blood
Liner Notes
"Hippies can't stand death metal"
- Eric Cartman
Tracks 1 and 6 are "hifi" and are originally recorded in the Operation Death Metal Hero Sessions. And tracks 2-5 are "lofi" and recorded in the Operation Obliteration Sessions, which later formed the spin off sessions, aka. the Covered In Blood Sessions (or "Fruits of Charlie's Procrastination”)
So if production was experimental, so were the music (besides it was plain reckless!). These are Deathtime versions in general, not 1:1 copies of the original song (if you are looking for those, go and watchthe Idols or shit like that). Yet song like Stagger Lee were even more experimental even on Deathtime's scale (more about that later on).
Covered In Blood is not as much a “cover album”, as it is a cover compilation. Since there are songs from two different sessions, which may differ in styles, even more in general production. I'm pretty sure you can hear it. Otherwise all songs that are covered here, fits well in, since they got pretty bloody, sinister and deprived themes.
Reason I did some experimental lofi stuff can be read here: (finnish only) and shortly in english I just say that I've been always little curious about it, and even I'm not any how involved into black metal scene it was a genre of extreme metal which used it (logically). More info here:
Lo-fi techniques are espoused by some genres outside the indie rock world, particularly by black metal artists, where the very low-quality of the recording has become a desirable quality, said by fans to convey a rawness and depth of feeling otherwise unattainable. Some fans deliberately seek out extremely lo-fi concert bootlegs, such as the Dawn of the Black Hearts, which are of very low quality.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo-fi
The black metal genre embraced the lo-fi idea during the late 1980s and early 1990s as it strived to distance itself from pop music. Most bands recorded their albums on extremely low budgets, using four-track recorders and any other equipment they could use. The greatest example is the Darkthrone album Transilvanian Hunger, though almost all of their albums have an intentionally "lo-fi" sound quality. The band started as a clean , well produced technical death metal band before evolving their style and almost singlehandedly producing the low quality production style that would become common place in the black metal scene. Varg Vikernes of Black Metal band Burzum was also known to purposely use extremely lo-fi recording techniques on his albums. On the album Filosofem, Varg was said to have intentionally asked a local store for the cheapest microphone they had, and they sold him a headset, which he used to record vocals on the album. For guitar he was said to have used a distortion pedal to drive a stereo receiver, which made the extremely fuzzy, buzzing guitar tone found on the album. The term "raw" is generally preferred to "lo-fi" in black metal circles.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lo-fi_music
1. 1 000 000
Nine Inch Nails (Trent Reznor) is one of most inspirational bands for Deathtime.. So these two songs (this, and LITS) that originally appeared on Deathtime's self titled debut (LITS on DELUXE version) are natural choices for this compilation.
This blasting version from already fast and heavy NIN song were made for the first Deathtime's album. It suited well for its style, and now it opens this opus with a blazing rage, that brings you sort of anti-heroism like it was going out of style.
2. Matti
Blackest of black humour, a song about man called Matti who lives in a (small) hut, has a cancer and blood in his shit (this is how Deathtime interprets an “epic metal”). This and Stagger Lee were legendary songs that I introduced to my friends back in a day, who all liked them both (sickos). So did I, and since both fit rather fine into this project because of the're both so sinister and deprived. Deathtime's new staff member, Elsubeth Bathory said that this was an excellent version (and her favourite band is CMX!).[Other Deathtime Crew member, J, said he liked this entire work as a whole and cheered: "Way to go" - you can see their work included in the Covered In Blood cover booklet!]
3. Stagger Lee
This one was certainly the most experimental song in this compilation.
Charlie weren't sure (especially about this version) if he should include this in at all, but what the hell, Deathtime is a brutal underground death metal band, so it will deliver bizarre stuff too. This song is the first doom metal song for Deathtime, but also an avantagarde metal song as well. Mixing of this song is very heavy, loud and almost fuzzy, so if you have small speakers it will sound pretty rough (they will explode, they wont make it, it is a bulldozer raping a water melon I tells ya!), yet if you have bigger ones with some good bass (and equalizators like "loudness" or "rock) it'll be at its finest. Funny how this track unites hifi-industry and lofi production, talking about irony!
4. I Wanna Be Your Dog
Iggy Pop And The Stooges played it as a proto-punk-song, then from that evolved punk, and from that hardcore, and from that death metal so this is like a full circle! And yes Watson, Deathtime did it. Thank you very much! And for the record, this was The First cover song made in the Obliteration Sessions, and it was intended for the Obliteration EP – just before things got blown out of proportion.
5. Mommy, Can I Go Out And Kill Tonight?
When Deathtime got started, about a year ago (soon), one very inspirational band was The Misfits, and especially their first album. Its production and raw pioneering music gave a nice inspirational atmosphere to do music. So in the middle of Obliteration sessions Charlie bought tickets to the Misfits gig and was thinking: Why haven't I ever even thought of covering their music?! This song is excellent for Deathtime to cover – name, music, lyrics, etc! This cover propably has the most fastest growling vocals ever heard - and they were taken in on one take! And why not, this version is very, very angry, going in for the kill!
6. Lights In the Sky
So if the NIN song started this compilation with a bang, so doest it end it too in gentle darkness. This is pretty different from the rest. This uses recitation (or recitative chanting) as vocals, not growling nor singing (recitation is used in the mid-part of Stagger Lee as well, yet in more theatrical and avantgardish way). That vocal style is a remnant from Charlies return to music. He did a spoken word piece for Margin Of Safety's Best Possible Weather album – find it here And also his other musical projects were more artistic, recitation 'n' ambient, non- / post-rock kind of projects (he actually recorded one of his poems Mantis in finnish, with Raimo aka. DJ Gutter who is working with audios for future Deathtime projects). Before that he used to play different instruments with bands or individual musicians about ten years earlier (guitar, keys and bass – that in the Doors cover band!). So you'll hear both influences in Covered In Blood. This track also has lots of Operation Death Metal Hero Sessions signature effects like binaural tones and sitra drones (like herr Huuhtadorfen said, it had an euphoric sounds entwined with that good ol' extreme brutality), which haven't been used in later Deathtime releases.
Oh, and I almost forgot...
[This text was originally released in Xeimian Chronicles blog's Valentine's day treat. The blog which was the original Deathtime data source, until this page was launched - I'll be propably bringing some other Deathtime feeds here later!]
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