This time the topic is the official old song on the album. It's so old it was on our 2011 EP, Chapter III, already. That, however, does not make it any less good or it wouldn't have been included on the album. We're not entirely daft, you see.
In the Trench
Otto: The first song written for this album – I remember us jamming this
tune back in early 2009 with Arttu, our previous bassist.
This version differs from the earlier EP version with some minor additions:
there are some keyboard parts there adding some depth and harmony and there's a
gong. Yes, gong. As we were recording the drums for the album, we discovered a
great big shiny gong in the studio, so we decided that we definitely need a
gong in our album. We recorded several good hits so that we could use one as
soon as we had any idea where would be the best spot for a gong. Ultimately, it
found its place in this song.
Henri: Another obvious difference is the addition of the subtitle "(Dear Eva pt. 3)" to the song title. Now, this has always been a continuation of the Dear Eva narrative, and I can't recall why we decided to drop it from the EP, but we did. This time we decided to include it to easily differentiate between the two versions as well as to make the relation to the other tracks explicit.
What we retained from the EP version, however, is that the second “verse” (“swallowing the brine…”) is one repeat (counting by the guitars) shorter than the first. This is because Niko, who recorded and mixed the EP as a school assignment, accidentally cut one repeat out and we didn’t notice until later. It would’ve been easily rectified, but we thought hey, why not give it a try like this? The lyrics were so sparse, I didn’t have to cut a single word, just shorten the long “LOVE” scream, which I couldn’t scream as long as I wanted to anyway.
What we retained from the EP version, however, is that the second “verse” (“swallowing the brine…”) is one repeat (counting by the guitars) shorter than the first. This is because Niko, who recorded and mixed the EP as a school assignment, accidentally cut one repeat out and we didn’t notice until later. It would’ve been easily rectified, but we thought hey, why not give it a try like this? The lyrics were so sparse, I didn’t have to cut a single word, just shorten the long “LOVE” scream, which I couldn’t scream as long as I wanted to anyway.
I remember the thing that got me started on the lyrics in this one was
accidentally getting some water down the wrong pipe. While coughing the water
out, I thought of the line “I need you like I need the water I breathe”, i.e.
not at all. Thematically, this is a sequel to “Dear Eva” (both parts) on our
first album, but here the longing of part one and anger of part two have been
replaced with bitterness. The theme then carries on to the two following
tracks.
Otto: Oh, in the case you have
wondered about the structure of this song, it's: Country - Moon - Naut*-
Country - Moon - Cowboy**- Naut - Conflict - Slowdown - Astral*** - Slowdown.
* Henri: It refers to a band called The Naut
** Henri: The name of this part is after the movie Midnight Cowboy, which I
was watching when coming up with the riff
*** Henri: This part is directly lifted from “Dear Eva pt. 1"; while
the rhythm of the lyrics is otherwise different, the “Dear Eva” line is intact;
hence the song's subtitle “Dear Eva pt. 3
