Omer Cordell, the mastermind behind Canadian metal project Trailight featuring vocalist Dave Padden (ex-Annihilator) and drummer Ryan van Poederooyen (Devin Townsend Project), has completed work on a single release cover of the Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds classic "The Weeping Song". It features Padden and Fear Factory frontman Burton C. Bell on vocals. It was released on February 22nd. Check it out below.

Cordell: "I can only think of a handful of people alive today who I consider to be the most prolific and inspiring artists who have influenced and inspired countless of people all over the world yet, in some way are considered to be unpopular. Who instead of following trends, the trends seem to follow them. Who continue to create their art without having to compromise their artistic vision and by doing so, they are able to create their own fusion and magic in music, words and visuals.And so, I wish to pay tribute to one of those people; one who I consider to be the most important artists of our time; the great Nick Cave. This is our version of 'The Weeping Song'

My endless gratitude to Dave Padden, Burton C. Bell, Cory McBain and Adrian Windsor for their great talent and hard work!"

Cordell recently spoke with BraveWords scribe Carl Begai about Trailight. Following is an excerpt from the interview.

“When I was first starting to think about doing this project, considering the vibe and riffs I was coming up with – ‘A Thousand Years’ was the first song I wrote – I knew who I wanted to play drums on it. Ryan has known me as a photographer for years, so when I called him up it was like ‘This may come as a surprise, but I’m making music now…’ (laughs). I asked if he’d be interested in playing on it and he wanted to hear the demos, but he had a bunch of touring to finish with Devin and then record the DVP double album. After that he had time to do my stuff.”

“Ryan came back from Devin’s album recording, learned my songs in about a week or 10 days, we had one day of pre-production where I had a chance to hear what he would be doing in the studio. Three days later we were in the studio and 10 hours later he was done recording. When we were finished I knew why I’d gotten Ryan to do it. He not only fits stylistically, he was also such an immense help with the whole process. I was basically flying blind. I’d been to the studios lots of times back when Strapping was around to take photos, but I’d never actually recorded in one before, so Ryan was helpful in guiding me.”

Cordell also took on outside help to produce The Primitive Mountain, a long and drawn out process that slowly deteriorated as the songs were being mixed. He eventually opted to take on the task of mixing and mastering himself; a daunting task on one hand, but the only option left if the album was going to live up to his expectations. Rather than a play-by-play of events, Cordell channels Metallica to sum up the situation.

“As far as the mix of the album, the first batch of songs that I sent you sound like St. Anger, and the final mixes sound like the Black album.”

Go to this location for the complete story.

Trailight recently released an official video for the song "Open Doors" from the debut, The Primitive Mountain:

The complete tracklist for The Primitive Mountain is as follows:

"Open Doors"
"Sentient Beings Pt. 1 - The Dim Future Of Our Distant Past"
"Sentient Beings Pt. 2 - All That We Are" 
"We Are The Ocean"
"Frail Human Form"
"The Primitive Mountain"
"Passer By"
"A Thousand Years"
"Navarino"
"Beyond The Rubicon"

Cordell released a 30 minute behind-the-scenes look at the production earlier this year, which can be viewed below. For information on Trailight go to this location.

Photo by Greg Rakozy