Denmark-based death metal band Wayward Dawn have been going strong since their formation in October of 2015. The 5-piece group released their debut album Soil Organic Matter in August of this year, and have just released this dual guitar playthrough of the track “In Darkness We Dwell”, only right here, on Gear Gods!
This song is a great example of some straight-up death metal done right. Blast beats, tremolo guitar lines, and chunky, maniacal riffs all come together to form a cohesive and consistent sound from the band. In addition to the playthrough, we’ve also got a great Q&A from the band about the song, album, and gear used to record. Check it out below, and be sure to follow the band on Facebook and Instagram, and YouTube, as well as stream/buy Soil Organic Matter on their Bandcamp!
- What’s the story behind “In Darkness We Dwell”? What inspired the song?
The content of the lyrics just started with the title. When I (Niklas; lead vocals) came up with it, it just sounded cool, and then I brainstormed different themes that would fit the title. Originally it was gonna be about Big Brother and surveillance society, which is still in there. But then it evolved into how the average people are kept in the dark on a lot of things going on the political and corporate world, and how we want the truth, but somewhat still appreciate the blissful bubble of lies we live in. Generally, it’s about untold truths that we crave to know, but when we get that ugly truth, we don’t want to accept it.
On guitars, we had a lot of different inspirations when writing the song. Thus it’s difficult to find exactly one thing that inspired the song. The song came quite naturally in the rehearsal. When we listen to the song afterward, we get a lot of a Göteborg melodic death metal feel to it – like At The Gates and bands like that. So At The Gates might have inspired us particularly in this song riff-wise.
- How does the song fit in the overall concept of the Soil Organic Matter album?
The theme of the album is a nihilistic point of view on society and humanity, so it very much fits in with the rest by having that weird and sometimes dark relationship between us people and the societies we live in. With “In Darkness We Dwell” especially, it’s a song that criticizes both humanity and society. It’s opinions and points of views taken to the extreme, for the sake of it being death metal and making the albums content interesting. So of course, everything should be taken with a grain of salt.
- Tell me about the gear you used to track guitars on the song/album?
Jakob:
My rhythm guitars were tracked with my Gibson SG loaded with an EMG 81 pickup. The guitar went through a Joyo Vintage Overdrive pedal into a Marshall JCM900 amp.
Rasmus:
I used my six-stringed ESP Eclipse 1 (the old version with two volume knobs and two tone knobs) with EMG 81/60 pickups as my rhythm guitar. The guitar went through my main amp; a Marshall JCM2000 DSL100 with an MXR GT-OD overdrive pedal in front. We both tune in drop B for all the songs.
We recorded all the basic rhythm tracks live together in the studio with the above-mentioned set-up. Afterwards, we overdubbed all the guitars on an old Epiphone Flying V with stock pickups into an Orange Overdrive amp from the 70’s. When tracking the overdubbed guitars, we used a Boss HM-2 in front of the Orange amp to get more of a classic death metal tone.
Lastly, we recorded the lead guitar on a Vox Night Train. Here we used a TC Electronics Hall of Fame Reverb, a Flashback Delay and a Spark Mini Booster in the FX Loop on the amp. When recording the lead, the same MXR pedal as mentioned before was placed in front of the amp. On the title track, I (Rasmus) used a Dunlop GCB95 Cry Baby on some of the lead. There is no lead guitar on “In Darkness We Dwell”, and it only consists of the rhythm track and the overdub with the Orange amp.
- What was the signal chain?
The overdrive pedal (both the Joyo Vintage Overdrive, MXR, and the HM-2) was in front of the amp, so we just played the guitars into the pedal and into the amp. As mentioned before we used the FX Loop for the lead parts to get reverb, delay, and clean boost.
- What are Wayward Dawn’s future plans?
Right now we are focusing on promoting our debut album by playing as many concerts as possible both in Denmark and outside the country. And of course, we are still writing new material constantly, so it won’t be too long before we’ll release new content again.
