Farewell, Hell Hole

Winds of change are a-blowin' in the ECW camp. We're currently in the middle of moving out of our long time rehearsal space, lovingly dubbed Hell Hole. This was the place where the line-up came together, finally. This was the place where Ever Circling Wolves as you know us were born.

An ancient shot from early 2008, before Arttu, Otto and Niko joined.

This space, or rather a part of it, was first inhabited by my former band, Morg (who called it quits in 2010 or so), in the summer of 2007. Although Ever Circling Wolves basically already existed at that time, with me having recorded the demo ep, "Picturesque, Petrified" in the spring, it was with the acquisition of a better rehearsal space that my quest for an ECW line-up truly began. Late 2007 and most of 2008 saw lots of people try and find the motivation to learn to play my (in some people's opinion) obnoxiously slow and boring tunes. Then, along came Arttu, then Otto, then Niko, and suddenly we were an actual band.

Niko, Otto, Henri and Arttu, November 2008.

It was here that we honed the tracks that would become our first full-length album, "The Silence from Your Room". It was here that we practiced for our first live performances in the summer of 2009. And every time we practiced, someone was always hungover. And that was quite okay, hangover doom is great.

Setting up for practice, March 2009.

As you might remember, Arttu left the band in 2010. Arttu was replaced by Sami and at Hell Hole he made the decision to join the band after playing with us a couple of times. It was here he said after something like a couple of moths in the band that he still didn't have an idea about what my voice sounds like live, due to the shitty PA we had at the time. Anyway, with Sami on board, we hung out at Hell Hole honing new tracks and some old ones and in early 2011 out came "Chapter III" with one new track and one old track.

First pic with Sami, October 2010.

In April 2012, we began one monolith of a project: the recordings of our sophomore full-length album, "Of Woe", which is yet to be finished. The lion's share of the album was recorded at Hell Hole, with the exception of drums. We spent 20-ish long days spread over 2012 and 2013 in our homey basement tracking, tracking, tracking. The tracking bit is pretty much done now, thankfully, and we've taken a piece of Hell Hole with us, in those tracks. And so, when the album is finally finished, we'll be able to share Hell Hole with you.

-Henri

P.S. Here'e some shots from the recordings.

Laying down some guitars, July 2012.

And then some more guitars, August 2012.

And bass too, October 2012.

Testing vocals with GhettoBooth™, January 2013 – it worked, this is how we recorded the vocals!

Five years and going strong

Roughly this time in 2007 I first had the idea of starting a doom metal band. First it was supposed to be just a solo project for me, and this in mind I wrote the first three songs, "One Joyless Night", "Loveless Moonlight/Cruel Dawn" and "Picturesque, Petrified", all of which ended up on the Picturesque, Petrified EP. The photo on the left is our first "official" promo shot and can also be found on the cover of the EP. If I remember correctly, I came up with the name Ever Circling Wolves, inspired by the Earth song "The Dire and Ever Circling Wolves", in the spring of 2007, before recording the EP, but after the photo was taken.

Download the Picturesque, Petrified EP here (in mp3)!

Or here (in a lossless format)!

Shortly after completing the EP, I started to gather a line-up for an actual band. Musicians came and went and we weren't really going anywhere until the summer/early autumn of 2008 with (left to right in our first proper promo shot, taken by Miika Karttunen) Otto Forsberg (guitar), Arttu Kantola (bass) and Niko Karjalainen (drums) (with me between Otto and Arttu) joining the fold. New eagerness flowed within us and new songs started to take form.

In 2009 we finally got the ball rolling properly. Our first visit to a real studio (Posti Studio) ended with us recording a full-length album instead of an EP like we'd intended. We also played our first proper live gigs, first of them (pictured on the left) at Lepakkomies (Helsinki) with the ever-awesome Temples and Chestburster, and the second at Hevimesta (Oulu) with the very heavy Wandering Midget. Towards the end of the year, more new songs began to emerge.

Download The Silence from Your Room from our bandcamp page!

Working with the new tracks was what we began 2010 with. This, however, got left on the backburner somewhat when Arttu decided to leave the band due to commitments elsewhere (check out his bands: Freedomination, Thomas Nobody and Mojo Waves). Luckily, we found Sami Nevala to replace him rather quickly. With Sami in tow, we resumed our arduous task of constructing new music, and at the end of the year stepped into studio to record an EP, Chapter III, which contains a new track, "In the Trench", and a re-recording of "Picturesque, Petrified" from the old EP.

Download Chapter III from our bandcamp page!

Or buy it from Dethroned Productions!

2011 started for us with the digital release of Chapter III, along with some gigs. New songs were introduced to the live set and they've been received well. We managed to pretty much write our next full-length album during 2011 and at the end of the year also got out a physical release of Chapter III with Dethroned Productions. We also got to play one of the most memorable shows of our career, on a bloody cruise ship!

Here's a live video from one of our gigs in 2011 (not the cruise ship show, however):

What 2012 holds in store, I can only guess. But we do have an album lined up, for one. Meanwhile, thanks for the past 5 years!

-Henri