Album: Deep Blue (2010)
Track: Home Is For The Heartless
Introduction:
The song begins with distant chants from a group of men. A washy clean guitar fades in above it. In a sudden volume snap up the full band hits its first note. This has a pretty strong effect in shocking the listener as it's hard to pick which beat the drop is (even if you know the song pretty well).
Time and rhythm:
This song is recorded at 140 beats per minute but makes extensive use of changing time feel. By that I mean, there are frequent switches from 'double time' feels to 'half time'. This kind of feel variation is extremely common in this genre. It's an excellent tool for building tension and releasing it. This song makes use of dropping into the half-time feel for each chorus. In a lot of other metalcore and hardcore genre music, this paradigm is also used to create 'breakdown' sections. I'll find a great example of a breakdown soon.
Backing vocals:
Backing vocals are extremely important in this song also. Each chorus is complimented with an extremely sing-along friendly "wooah, wooah". Crowd participation for metalcore music is phenomenal, there is a small break before the final chorus containing only this chant. The purpose is clearly to intensify the crowd participation in the final chorus.
Panning perspective for drums:
A note on the panning of cymbals: Being a drummer, I often like to listen to music from the perspective of the drummer. I've noticed a lot of music has cymbals panned from that perspective to create tonal separation for each type of cymbal. In this case, I can hear hi hats on my left, ride cymbal and crash/ride on the right. In this song there are many instances where the drummer plays cymbals from the right and left side of the drum kit simultaneously or in quick succession. The use of panning in this recording helps greatly with the definition of each stroke.
Producer and labels:
Deep Blue was produced by Joe Barresi and released on Resist Records, Epitaph and Burning Heart.
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