With a brand new album entitled One Man Army under their belts and a brand new home on the legendary Metal Blade Records, things in the Ensiferum camp are looking the strongest they have ever been. In the second part, vocalist Petri Lindroos discusses the recording process, and how vigorous yet surprisingly relaxed the whole period was.
Another factor that arguably set Ensiferum apart from their peers is the venturing into the use of orchestral parts previously in their back catalogue, but in an overshadowing manner, but more as in a sense of bulking their palette and trying something new. 2009’s From Afar (Spinefarm) set the precedence for this, before 2012’s Unsung Heroes (Spinefarm) reduced the use. Interestingly, newest album One Man Army (Metal Blade) sees the dynamic of orchestration shift again; an overall process that Lindroos explains.
“From Afar was kind of an experiment with the orchestrations for Ensiferum and it’s pretty full of it now, that you listen to it in perspective and it sounded so cool during the recordings but it got a little out of hand, so after that we kind of learned that you don’t have to put it into every single riff part available, but I think we got it nailed on this one. Its pretty much trial and error, live and learn, every time you make a new album you learn and now we are getting the hang of it.”
“Finding a balance with the orchestration is difficult in the sense that heavy metal itself is already very powerful in its own way and adding a full orchestra to that is a little tricky, and making it sound good without eating away at each other is very difficult and pretty much a balance question.”
Of course, no band’s recording story would be complete without tales of arduous and testing experiences, and with the sheer work rate of producer Ansi Kippo and his supposed super human abilities.
“Our producer/recorder/owner of the studio is a man who can work without any sleep, which is crazy and amazing at the same time, but he can do as long as necessary. If you have enough energy to sing until six in the morning he will stay up too, if you’re on a good run you don’t have to give up, if someone is fired up we can keep going all night.”
“We started a little later in the afternoon, there’s no point picking up a guitar at 8 in the morning, everyone knows that’s not going to work so we would start at midday, so obviously its going to go late into the night. I’d been working with Ansi a couple of times before and its been like that from the start, he just can’t stop, he’s a workaholic.”
Despite the long days, Lindroos is very adamant that this was beneficial in the recording process and on the final result, being an absolute necessity: “Without that we couldn’t have finished in time, it would have taken a couple of weeks, cost us more money which wouldn’t have made anyone happy so a big thanks goes to him that we could do it pretty much on time.”
Speaking of recording, it has almost become cliché for bands to speak of sleepless nights, stress, even arguments and other problems that make for a mantra that Ensiferum clearly didn’t get: “There were no big problems, in our point of view the only thing stopping us was when a tube blew up from a guitar amp that took 45 minutes to change, that was the biggest issue. Otherwise it was a case of whoever is ready to record would do so. It was very relaxed and smooth. It was surprising, but I knew before that Ansi was a smooth guy, he makes it all so easy.”
WORDS BY CHRIS TIPPELL