OGRE "Dogmen [of Planet Earth] -without a doubt, the natural opener for the album. This one has a little bit of everything that defines the OGRE sound: some 70s riffing, a touch of doom, Ed’s killer vocals, Will’s walloping drums, and some serious guitar jams." When Ogre formed in late 1999, the band had two missions: to stay true to the sound and vision of the early 70s hard rock bands they idolized and to always remain a three-piece band. To Ogre, the power trio is the ultimate format for rock and for the band itself -stripped down, no frills, every band member pulling his own weight, no dead weight. Not surprisingly, Ogre's latest album, "Seven Hells" [released by Leaf Hound Records], is rocking in all the best ways -the album delivers a total heavy 70's overload and recalls the heyday of hardrock! Words | Ross A lot of people have asked us why it took us three years to record the follow up to our debut record, 'Dawn of the Proto-Man.' Sometimes I ask myself the same thing, especially since all of the songs were fully written by the end of the summer of 2004. Though there certainly were several factors involved here, the delay was mostly a simple matter of finances. Since Proto-Man was entirely a DIY project, we needed to earn back all the money we spent on the debut before proceeding with 'Seven Hells.' At any rate, we finally made our way into Mad Oak Recording Studio [owned by Craig Riggs of Roadsaw / Antler fame] in March of 2005 and laid down the new tracks in one frenzied weekend. We were still self-financing the project at this point, so time meant money. Thankfully, we had plenty of practice with the songs so we were able to pound them out in a couple takes each. Mad Oak was a pretty unbelievable place to record in, especially from a guitarist’s point of view—they had just about every vintage amp imaginable there, as well as a slew of vintage keyboards [more about that later] and effects. For what it’s worth, I recorded my guitar solos through a Marshall head formerly owned by Lenny Kravitz as well as the tattered Marshall cab pictured on the inside of Roadsaw’s Rawk and Roll album. Cool stuff. Though the recording went as well as we could have hoped, the real delays came with the mixing process. Essentially, we scrapped an entire initial mix of the album and decided to re-do the whole thing in Portland with our good friend Marc Bartholomew at Band Saw Recording [now Monolithic Recording]. Marc has an amazing ear and great judgment in terms of mixing, so he really helped bring the album to life. A few mastering delays later, the album was finally finished, and thus began the process of sending it out to labels. After a few European labels expressed interest, we finally heard from Toreno Kobayashi at Leaf Hound Records, who said he really wanted to put it out. Being big fans of his label, we immediately said 'yes' and, finally, after years of setbacks and waiting, Seven Hells was unleashed. Here’s a breakdown of the album, track-by-track: Dogmen [of Planet Earth] Without a doubt, the natural opener for the album. This one has a little bit of everything that defines the OGRE sound: some 70s riffing, a touch of doom, Ed’s killer vocals, Will’s walloping drums, and some serious guitar jams. The noise that you hear at the beginning of the song is a combination of guitar feedback and me banging on a vintage Hawkwind-style synthesizer / audio generator that was lying around the studio, providing just the right amount of bombast to kick things off. And in case you were wondering, yes we know—thanks to some astute listeners—that the opening riff sounds a lot like a Captain Beyond song, but we swear it was entirely unintentional. Really. Soldier of Misfortune Probably the favorite song of all three band members, this one comes off as the mutant bastard son of Hendrix’s "Machine Gun" and Iron Maiden, if fronted by Dio. This song has a ridiculous amount of guitar solos in it, but I refuse to apologize for any self-indulgence here. It also features my patented retarded guitar harmonies, first heard on Proto-Man’s 'Black Death.' Even though all the harmonies are wrong, note-wise, they somehow end up sounding pretty cool. Still, I think I have a lot to learn from Dave Murray and Adrian Smith. Anyway, Ed’s scream before the second section kicks in is masterful, and Will’s double bass drumming at the end is pretty much the best thing ever. Oh yeah, Will has a back up vocal credit on this one. Figure out where it is, and well send you a prize. The Gas A track from our demo tape, re-recorded for maximum heaviness. The retarded guitar harmonies surface once again, though here they come out sounding like Victor Griffin, and that’s just fine by me. Woman on Fire Probably the most 'stoner rock' thing on the album. For some reason, Ed doesn’t really like this one, but I think it came out just fine. The middle section was recorded live in one take, without any overdubs, which I think is a pretty impressive feat, considering how many times that jam has turned into a sloppy mess during rehearsals and live shows. Will sneaks in a classic Neil Peart 'By-Tor & The Snow Dog' snare roll towards the end, and we all get to do little solo breaks, in true indulgent 70s style. Review Your Choices Will and I have wanted to cover this one for a while, especially since Pentagram has been such a huge influence on the band. Of course, since we recorded this, every band and its brother has recorded a Pentagram cover, so it probably looks like we are jumping on the bandwagon, but who really cares? Pentagram rules, and this song fit in perfectly with the tone of the rest of the album. Though we’re clearly playing the 70s band arrangement here, the heavier feel is indebted to the "Keg Full of Dynamite" version. Ed’s vocals do a great job here of taking it out of the realm of slavish imitation and putting more of an OGRE stamp on it. Sperm Whale Will and I need to let you in on a little secret: in the 70s, most drum solo songs showed up on album #2 and most of them were named after animals of some sort. Think about it: 'Rat Salad', 'Moby Dick', 'The Mule' [Fireball is the second album of Deep Purple Mk II, in case you were ready to prove me wrong]. Hence, 'Sperm Whale. Though I have annoyed Will countless times telling him that I think drum solos are boring, such is not the case here. Will’s solo is so good that I could listen to it over and over again [a little bit of groovy flange on the drums helps too]. If I remember correctly, Will nailed the solo in one take as well. The crazy vocal part after the solo is our nod to the theremin section in 'Whole Lotta Love', with Ed screaming out a poem that he wrote in high school and me demonstrating why I rarely play slide guitar. We also managed to fit in the obligatory cowbell at the end, though we had to axe our plan to include that ultimate in 70s percussion, the vibra slap, which was lost after we scrapped the first mix. There’s always next time, folks. Flesh Feast 'Flesh Feast, just as 'Dogmen' is the perfect opening, this epic had to be the closer. I get my second keyboard credit here, courtesy of the mellotron that I spied the second I walked into Mad Oak. Once I saw that baby, there was no way in hell that I wasn’t going to use it somewhere on the album. Turns out, it was the perfect creepy accompaniment for the opening of the song. Mellotron aside, this is Ed’s masterpiece: his vocals here give me the chills, especially those reverbed opening words. When we came up with the idea for the blown out ending, we didn’t know how people would take it, but no one seems to be complaining [yet]. In fact, it’s become a pretty popular part of our live shows recently, oddly enough. Ed’s mumbling in bastardized Latin at the end was a last minute touch added during mixing, and his final scream almost got him punched out by the engineer. Ask him about it sometime. That’s about it. We’re pretty proud of this record, and we hope people like it. And if we sell enough copies, maybe it won’t be another three years before the next one comes out!