Flesh Reunion released

Friday 13th of February, 2015. Flesh Reunion is released.

I’ve been looking to the future (well, getting ready for tomorrow – we’re writing the next album).  And nearly missed the fact that Flesh Reunion is out now!  (I already have a copy you see).

It’s on iTunes (UK, US) and Amazon (UK, US).

You’ll get 13 raw and powerful rock and roll tracks with subjects ranging from death, to the number 13, to sleeplessness, to rioting, to wolves, to inanimate objects, even as far as love, and icepicks, and death again.

 

Uplifting.

You should buy it.  It’s only £2.49 on iTunes!

Tomorrow, Tomorrow

It’s Wednesday the 11th today, which means that Tomorrow’s Tomorrow is Friday the 13th.  What do we do on Friday the 13th?  Well, if we’re HowManyDevils we tend to release an album.  Sadly we can’t manage one for every Friday the 13th, but we have got one coming this time.  That would be Flesh Reunion.  All new material this time (none of that 13ep here’s a song we didn’t record 13 years ago stuff), 13 tracks of the grumbly dark rock you should now expect from us.  It’ll be on iTunes (UK, US) and Amazon (UK, US), maybe other places…  And it’s cheap!

Meanwhile, we’re off on our next project.

(psst, free downloads on http://www.howmanydevils.com/fleshreunion – but if you buy it that would be great)

 

Flesh Reunion 21 – snip, snip, ow!

So, I’m Stumpy Boxhead.  Hello, pleased to meet you!  I’m the non-existing drummer from the band HowManyDevils.  This is their blog I’m writing on.  I started off life as Stumpy, an Alesis HR-16 – occasionally with a Roland TR-505 slaved.  Later that became a TR-626.  Simon made an actual head out of a cardboard box, so I gained my surname.  Then I evolved to some soundfonts on a SoundBlaster AWE card.  Very, very briefly I was samples of Rob saying ‘boom’, ‘chick’, and ‘diddy’.  Recently I’ve been made of Logic 9 samples and – back to Alesis – a D4.  All of which is fine:  I’m an imaginary robot drummer with a cardboard box for a head and all that you hear of me is sampled or synthesised and played by a drum machine.  Machine being the key word.

This time around, I’m just not so sure.  For starters they’ve called the album Flesh Reunion.  I’m an imaginary robot drummer… flesh isn’t actually that inclusive to me is it!  Then what do they do? yes, they use a REAL DRUM KIT – I’m a MACHINE!  I’m pretty offend already by this point.  It has been so difficult trying to play real drums with a cardboard box for a head.  I can’t see what I’m hitting. MIDI was easier (please sequence me again).  Then… then they make me a new head, and wear it on their fleshy selves.  Mockery!  If I wasn’t a figment of their imagination I’d have left long ago.

So that brings me to the insult they laid on me today at their Flesh Reunion.  They edited the drum tracks to A Different Breed.  Why? <sarcastic>because they weren’t quite in time</sarcastic>.  I USED TO BE A FAULTLESSLY ACCURATE MACHINE.  Now I’m all gooey physical flesh and my tempo drifts.

It does sound good after the edits though…

Err, thanks guys.

Flesh Reunion 20 – 7 hours, 4 bars and a ghost

I’ve just got back from Flesh Reunion 20.  In a whole 7 hours we recorded 4 bars of drums for A Different Breed.  It’s the chorus, I just can’t play the chorus and we’ve ended up making those 4 bars out of 7 different takes.  Crikey!  If it sounds alright when we edit it back in to the song it will feel like a little victory

Flesh Reunion 20 – 7 hours, 4 bars and a ghost

I’ve just got back from Flesh Reunion 20. In a whole 7 hours we recorded 4 bars of drums for A Different Breed. It’s the chorus, I just can’t play the chorus and we’ve ended up making those 4 bars out of 7 different takes. Crikey! If it sounds alright when we edit it back in to the song it will feel like a little victory.  The song has a great little riff and we’d all be disappointed if it didn’t make the album.  It’s just the riff is so hard to drum to, especially when your head is a cardboard box…  Still, we’re a step closer and I think the guys are happy.  Just before we left though, snares started playing at times when snares weren’t played.  It turns out technology lets us have so many tracks to record with nowadays that we’d left an extra snare take un-muted…

Oh, and we found something else that is rock and roll: white pepper on chips.

Flesh Reunion 19 – Drummy, drum drum

World In Flames, A Different Breed, Icepick Lunatic.  These are the HowManyDevils songs that got some more drums today.  Who played drums? Me.  Whose fault is it? Mine.  I’m not a drummer…  There’s a tom fill that I can do pretty well now, and I’m pretty close to being in time.  Not really selling you on it there though am I?  Intensive editing will happen and you’ll think the drums were played by a professional. We have got a much tighter drum sound out of this session though.  How? By covering the drums with plushy dog toys.

Flesh Reunion 18 – and a bad idea…

We got a fair old bit of work done today.  More vocals takes for Through These Eyes, Half Way There, Icepick Lunatic, Carolyn, Set Him Free, and extra guitar, percussion, and Didgeridoo on A Different Breed.  Maybe the latter was a bad idea.

If you are wondering how awful an idea this was, check out our YouTube channel.

Next week, drums again…

 

 

Flesh Reunion 4 – Through These Eyes, A Different Breed

Flesh Reunion 4: the fourth meeting of the re-incarnated HowManyDevils, two more songs, six songs in total, that’s half an album.  It’s going well.  This week HowManyDevils became a bit funkier with A Different breed and Through These Eyes.  Through These Eyes is the most bass driven piece of Flesh Reunion (so far), A Different Breed should be nicely danceable.

We also did the photoshoot for the Boxheads.  If I get my finger out… watch out for them!