Behind The Tracks: Going Feral - Ghoul Rebellion (Single) (2020)

Ghoul Rebellion was our first effort as a band. Rob and Yuri (both guitars) started talking after he posted in a UK Math and Post Rock Facebook group and hit it off. They jammed on some ides at Yuri’s house but nothing concrete came together until our first practice.

Yuri wrote the introductory riff that would form what are essentially the “verses” of the song the night before and we were all into it. We hashed out the remainder of the song as a band in the rehearsal space we use in Leeds. During this time we decided we had a full enough sound without a bassist so that meant we wouldn’t have to worry about someone upsetting the apple cart later down the line!

Rob: I remember being really stumped on what to do to flow out of the intro riff and wrote about a dozen different parts that were all various shades of terrible. In the end I threw out some chords off the cuff in practice and it flowed beautifully, creating a nice counterbalance to the single note riffing that drives the early parts of the track. From there it was a question of making the track flow, since without vocals repetition becomes noticeable very quickly. No vocals mean the guitars as the melodic instruments have to tell the story, and that’s something I try to remain conscious of when I’m writing.

Alex (Drums): I’ve seen plenty of drummers in heavier bands build bigger and bigger drum setups with 6 toms, multiple hi-hats, 17 cymbals including 3 chinas and I just can’t be arsed to carry that around. Less is almost certainly more! With time I’ve added a ride because I really like the split groove feel of using both ride bells and hi-hat. Not having a bassist also means having a humungous floor tom to give a good pelting is great too. This all figures in Ghoul Rebellion prominently in the big chord sections, there was a lot of space for me to play in. Now I just need a Sherpa to help with the load in at our next show…

Whilst working on the guide tracks at home Alex (drums) accidentally doubled the length of the end section that actually enhanced it. Rob had the idea to end with a stripped back, heavy variation on the introduction riff to play us out and then we were done!

We recorded at a studio in Huddersfield called Sasquatch Music. The engineer for the session was a bassist in a doom band so we had to fight off his suggestions of just throwing some bass on the track. We got around this by having Yuri throw some ebow on there to add some width where we needed to. His suggestion of keeping number of takes low was right on the money though!