We did not want to sound like “the next Metal band”

By Am Tuat Vocalist / Guitarist Bauke Valstar

The ideas for the album originate from the period just after making our demo Secunda Ante Meridiem and recording our first full-length album, Inmotion. The musical direction of the band is not something we aimed for, but rather evolved naturally over time. It is also the very reason none of the songs sound alike. Every song is written with its own intentions, story, feeling and, not unimportant, time period. Am Tuat does not limit itself to writing lyrics or songs concerning a specific subject. We write about the things that bother us most, hurt us the most or has our interest. For the music we generally have one person come in with the main idea: “this is what it sounds like”, and thereafter we arrange the song to, in our opinion, to what it should and can be. Keeping constant track on composition, atmosphere and rhythm. Due to that, some songs took longer to write than others and even took several versions before we felt it was good enough to perform it live and, in the end, to put it on our album.

The recording itself was done by an acquaintance of ours who just started his own studio and is working currently in the live scene as a sound engineer. Because of his knowledge of Metal we felt he was the person to record and mix our album. What we made clear in the beginning is that we did not want to sound like “the next Metal band”, but want a sound that is recognisable as Am Tuat. All instruments (except for bass (Arno Rensink) and one guitar (me)) we recorded separately. While this gave more freedom of recording, we also found it had limitations. In the end we could work it all right, but at some points took more time than when you would make a “live-recording” of all instruments at once. Recording the album itself took ten days, with sixteen hours of each day being used. Making the final mix took two and a half months to complete. After the final mix, we published a few songs on our MySpace on the 1^st of September, and officially released the album at a CD presentation in The Willemeen in Arnhem the 6^th of September. Thereafter it was the long wait for the first reviews. The first two we have at this very moment are very positive in our opinion. One review was written by Vera of Lordsofmetal.nl, and the other was published in Mindview - a free Belgian / Dutch music magazine.

At this moment we perform in as many venues as possible to promote our new album and hope we can find a label that is interested in our music and sees a fruitful, prosperous future in Am Tuat.