The Manhattan Project - Act 1

In the beginning of September, we decided that we weren’t going to waste any more time on endless planning and made a simple executive decision to enter the studio as soon as possible to record a few new songs. So we settled on 3 songs, and if those would go well, we’d come back to record the remainder of a full-length (codename: The Manhattan Project). Magnus, our drummer, knew of a place in Halden (2-hour drive from Oslo) and an engineer that could help us record. Plans were very quickly put to motion and two weekends were reserved for us.

So on the weekend of September 21st, we filled up the trusted Merlin-mobile again (the Ford Escort that has served us well for nearly 10 years) with equipment and head out for the studio. No strings attached, just a weekend of playing around with the songs. It’s been 5 years since last time. Knowing practically nothing about the studio, we had no idea what were going to; pretty much the typical Merlin way. It turned out it was to be, at least for me, one of the most rewarding weekends with Merlin yet. The place was awesome (built into a mountain, taken straight out of Goldeneye on the N64) and our studio engineer Espen was a great guy who really understood and loved our music and knew how to make things work. Everything just sounded so much better than it ever had before. Magnus was unbelievable, insanely good beyond anything, and finished his songs in one afternoon. The next day or so we recorded all the bass and even nearly finished all the guitars on one song. Everything was just tight. That weekend was beyond our expectation and in every way magical. Henrik even stopped by to say hi and film a little, more about that later.

We left Halden on Sunday feeling really motivated and happy with the result and already looking forward to our next session in the studio.