It’s our last day here. Time to put some final tweaks in place, take a last few bits of video footage and pack all the kit back into the Kinder Van.

We worked late into the night last night getting some rough mixes done and deciding on the overall sound of the album. We’ve also decided on the track listing that flows the best. All the tracks stand up on their own, but when listened as a complete album they sound incredible. Its always been important for us to write a cohesive album rather than a selection of tracks, and we think we’ve achieved that goal in the last two weeks.

Keep watching this space, checking our Facebook and reading our Tweets.

And for those of you that haven’t seen it yet, Leo has decided to branch out into the martial arts. We insist you check out his new skills by checking this video on YouTube.

After a day of finishing off the tracking for the album and watching the “World Cup of Fail”, we can finally start getting our teeth into mixing the songs. This is always one of the most exciting parts because you start to get a feel for what the final songs will sound like, how the album will fit together, and how the tracks will flow.

One thing we can say for sure, this album is a great evolution from what we did with the Wrath of the Lambs. The luxury of having 2 weeks dedicated studio time really show on this record. The song writing is much better (in our humble opinions), we’ve had the time to get the right sounds, and we’ve captured something much closer to the live performance of our tracks.

We’re half way through doing some rough mixes now and are already really happy with the results. Sadly we’ll be leaving Germany before all the mixes are finished, but it’ll give us the chance to listen with some fresh ears when we hear them in a week or two.

What a day – we’re just about there now! We’ve tracked the last of the vocals for Wolves and Clarity, had another Germany World Cup game and another BBQ. We even re-recorded one of the solos to make it that little bit more special.

We also managed to track a bonus song for the album. It’s a beautiful interlude with only guitar and (controversially) piano played by Leo!

With only a few touches left on the guitars and other parts, we spent almost the whole day doing vocals for You’ll Never Know & Division. The choruses for Division are sounding enormous!

We also captured Leo’s huge bass slide sound on record finally. We’ve tried and failed many times before in other studios, but Willi’s genius suggested a kick drum mic in the corner of the room to pick up the really low frequencies. The sound is so powerful it shakes a concrete building. Now that’s whammo.

Check Day 12 for the most recent video blog that includes Day 11.

We’ve now polished off the last couple of pieces of guitar work required. The solos are written, recorded and captured on “tape”. Jon even put together a make-shift pedal steel guitar by playing a Les Paul, laid flat on a chair, and played it with an e-bow and slide. Yet another addition to the music we weren’t expecting before we got here! Every piece of guitar work from here is a bonus to make the album sound even better.

The vocals are also done for Clarity, and Reconnect. It’s not long now until we’ll have a fully recorded album that we can start mixing. We can’t wait!

Check Day 12 for the most recent video blog that covers Day 10.