Eradication - Improper
Track by track commentary by Mikko Gynther
1. Barf at the Moonshine Reggae is the first track we wrote for Improper and most of the EP follows the pattern of spontaneously combining elements that do not necessarily belong together. The approach is drastically different from the vast majority of our previous efforts where most parts were carefully written before even rehearsing the material. That being said it does not sound very different in the end.
In addition to a different composition process we also wanted to go for different tones in different songs. Barf at the Moonshine Reggae features overdriven fretless bass and fuzz guitar to embrace lo-fi aesthetics and electric violin to add drama.
Instead of vocals Barf at the Moon and every track on Improper feature guitar melodies. It felt a natural choice as when we started to write the pieces we were fully concentrating on the music without thinking about any lyrical ideas.
2. Dancing Queer features genre hopping in various dance music styles. Quite a few parts have an odd time signature for fun and comedic value. The result is an insult to many schools of music. A careful listener will find disco with Swedish pop metal and German baroque pastiche as well as humppa with outlaw country guitars. We had a lot of fun writing and recording the tune.
3. Kinks of Metal combines metal with blues rock. Actually layering styles that first appeared at different times is something we do quite often. In this case it's just particularly obvious and common heritage between the styles makes it interesting. The result is different from any snapshot in the development of blues rock into metal although later on similar blend has surely been done by others too.
Writing Kinks of Metal started with lead guitar part and drums were written and recorded right after. Rhythm guitar and bass were written over two years later when recording all other instruments than drums. Basically every track on the EP was written in the same way. When recording drums we only had some key parts written and mood set. Many details were filled in later.
4. Degenerates of Funk is the last track we wrote for Improper. When thinking about what hadn't we done yet we came up with a funky riff and some 70's style rocky jazz fusion combined with hard rock guitar from the same era.
Bass tone is quite unusual and it was achieved by playing a fretless using a pick with heavily distorted sound. This kind of sonic experimentation was a key point when we started to work on the EP. The idea was not to get stuck in the same ways of working.
5. Hot Pot for Preacher (Tongue Twister) is a fast piece with big band and bebop era jazz influences merged into hard rock. There's enough tonal and rhythmic similarity to make it work, at least for us. Both styles are also fun and entertaining which enabled us to go crazy. Moreover, driven guitar can replace brass instruments sonically which was discovered in the early days of rock 'n' roll. Rockabilly and 50's horror influences spice up the mash.
6. Comfortably Dumb slows down the pace but not without a few odd bits here and there. We figured a slow piece in minor key would sound fresh after a few fast tracks.
Like the other tracks on the EP Comfortably Dumb is essentially a guitar instrumental. There is a theme which is varied and revisited after a solo. Similarly to other recent Eradication tracks the solo is a natural progression of a melody to make it sound more musical.
