Guitarist Anders "Blakkheim" Nyström from Swedish metallers KATATONIA has issued the following studio update:

"Just when the 'g-g-g-guitars' were done we decided that one song needed acoustic guitars for a different folkish touch and we had to devote some more time for that the last weekend. Fred “north” Norrman came down to get it done, but it was harder than we thought. Playing an acoustic guitar and making it sound great is one thing, but actually recording it and making it sound great kinda makes you wonder how some people can do full acoustic guitar albums without any picking or strings noise on the fretboard, but it turned out fine eventually. Yeah.

Last Monday it was time for Mr. Synthesizer man Frank Default to come down the rat-hole for a week. Frank owns a real Rhodes piano, so we thought we’d save all those parts for the real deal and mic it up instead of keeping the midi programming hooked up to a software plug-in.

We also went through all the other keyboards, loops and effects Frank has been working on simultaneously the whole time we’ve been recording. Switching sounds, approving harmonies and making sure everything blends in correct in the sound-picture (or distinguishably incorrect in Katatonia’s tradition) took it’s fair share of time.

We then bounced everything down from Frank’s mac into our sessions. Our guy has done some great work especially with the string arrangements and the production sounds huge! Deep! Atmospheric! I tell ya!

On Friday a black BMW showed up and it was Kryptan with his EBS stack consisting of a Fafner TD 600 amp with a 8×10 Evolution Proline 2000 cab. We rigged up and set the sound of thunder. Kryptan’s bass, a 5 string Warwick Katana model had also been dropped off at Guitar Labs for a total first aid operation due to the wear and tear from the life on the road – thanks guys! We also threw some coated Elixir strings on it that would withstand even the dirt from the murky corridors of the rat-hole.

We basically did a couple of tunes each day figuring out bass-lines and when to play with a pick or use the fingers, when to use distortion and when to go smooth and plump. Very long days, only heading home to sleep at night and then back to the rat-hole in the morning. Luckily for me, kryptan’s i-phone turned out to be working as a modem for my laptop so I could go online for the first time down the rat-hole – a religious experience! But I will soon have to go back to my off-line forsaken destiny as Kryptan is wrapping up and returning to Avesta as his work for this album gets completed this Monday evening.

What else… well Jonas (Renkse) has been home for the last couple of days getting all his last things together for the lyrical/vocal arrangements and tomorrow we start recording his voice.

The album title along with the cover artwork will be revealed this week as well."

Check out studio photos at this location.