Against The Effluxion

Against The Effluxion

Basic information

Released:    11 November 2011
Recorded:    Mostly July - September 2011, Neumětely
Genre:          Hard rock, pop rock, emo, heavy pop
Length:        43:44
Label:           Shotgun Com., Ltd.
Singles:       Bibi, I want to make love to you, A letter to heal, Sonnet

Track listing

1. Razorblade interlude (0:38)
2. Emotional selfmurderer (2:20)
3. Deepest cut (3:08)
4. Bibi (3:31)
5. Tout Gai de Reguennes (2:44)
6. A letter to heal (3:33)
7. Sonnet (5:20)
8. Never fails to amaze me (3:01)
9. Walking under moon (5:13) (music and lyrics by Petr Ficenec)
10. Ambulance (3:26)
11. I want to make love to you (2:47)
12. Honeyvoiced (4:07)
13. Hide the scars (3:52)

The break-up

In 2009, I and Mary Sue broke up, which I already described in Handfuls of character. I put a lot of faith into that relationship and ended up frustrated, seeing no future after a failure like that. This, plus the fear of upcoming final exams on my high school, made me sink into deep depression in the spring of 2010 which resulted in me drinking heavily but also writing the first four songs for the album. The first one was Razorblade interlude (the prologue only, as music, an instrumental from Honeyvoiced was used). Then came Emotional selfmurderer, I can tell exactly when in was written by the lyrics 'When winter dies...'. Apart from describing how depression feels, I also stated that I needed to stay with Mary Sue should we only be friends - that was the main reason why I fear leaving the school. And yes, alcohol is mentioned there, too, in 'not really aqua vitae'.

The third was Deepest cut, I remember writing most of the song in a chemistry class (quite many of my song were written there). The last one, Sonnet, has a similar tone (if I can depend on 'it's been eight months and I still haven't got over...', it was written in May) and you can trace similarities in lyrics as well. Both of the song share the same optimistic feel towards the end, compare 'I can feel my very best' and 'I'll be coming back to you'. These two are also linked by their heavy pop sound, back then I was yet to decide on the final sound of the album. For many years, I planned writing a 'happy' album but after I've written these four songs I decided to turn it upside down and write an 'Emoplate'. I was listening to Billy Talent a lot at that time and I thought, why not give my songs a sound like this?

The first song I wrote in this style was A letter to heal which came out of a conversation I had with Mary Sue in July. It is my response to her claiming that I needed somebody to feel sorry me (I could quite easily do that myself). The truth was that I just needed to talk about my problems with anybody ('so I'm writing to you 'cause you might help' - this whole song is therefore a letter meant to heal me) and I would be grateful for any piece of advice no matter if I believed it or not ('it is right [that] what you think is what you trust').

Bibi

In July, I met Bibi, my primary school classmate, whom I haven't seen for ten years and I immediately fell in love with her, despite the unlikelihood, and we started dating in September. That was when I wrote Bibi, possibly the only truly happy song on the album. (Interestingly, when I saw Bibi after ten years, the first thing I could whink of was a melody I wrote ten years ago - yes, it was the soon-to-be chorus of Bibi.) I was, however, unable to get rid of depression, unable to stop thinking that everything can a will go wrong and ultimately this led to series of misunderstandings after which Bibi left me with only Hide the scars to accompany me.

My depression deepened even more and so did my alcohol abuse. For example, I wrote I want to make love to you on my way home from a party where I met a girl (who looked like Lady Gaga) never to see her again, she inspired me to finish the song, though (I already had the bridge in mind for weeks). The chorus of Honeyvoiced, similarly, came onto my mind after waking up in someone else's bed after another party (or maybe it wasn't a party but just an evening spent drinking). The girl I was writing about was someone I knew from school and my knowing of her was very fragmentary - I know that 'she likes to dance' and that her voice was soothing like honey and that's pretty much it. The idea of alliteration in every verse come from my English literature teacher, as well as the idea to write a sonnet (even though Sonnet is not a real sonnet, it only has the the pattern, not the verse).

Recording

The recording of this album represented a completely new experience for me since this time I wanted to give all the songs the same sound. By April, the songs were already finished so I had nearly three months to practise, then I locked meself in me father's house for some ten days where I recorded like crazy and in the following three months I went nuts on overdubbing and editing. It worked and I'm satisfied with the overall sound (by that time it was the best I could do). To save time editing, I even recorded most tracks with Edward Rateer's Digitech multi-effect and I'm particularly proud on the solos in Emotional selfmurderer (as far as I can remember the only song in my catalogue featuring Whammy) and Honeyvoiced.

The whole idea behind this album was my disappointment with Handfuls of character, wich I always thought has gone too far from what I wanted it to sound like while it didn't present anything new. I thought that I needed to go against the effluxion of time, back to 2004 (when I was influenced by the Ramones) to record a rough hard rock album. This would lead me back to the heavy pop sound I invented on Home alone (2006) and mastered on A touch of ultimate pleasure (2009). So hopefully this will work too and I will be able to record an album which will surpass both Handfuls in terms of the composing quality and ATE in terms of the overall sound.

Miscellaneous

There isn't much to say about Tout Gai de Reguennes, I like the song but there is not a story behind it. I once said to Rosie 'Have a nice life, someday we'll see each other...' when leaving (obviously it must have been a rather unsuccessful date) and then I revived these words in a song musically inspired by Five Years by David Bowie and To se stává by Václav Neckář. The name comes from Luis d'Antin van Rooten's Mots d'Heures. Never fails to amaze me was written in a philosophy class around December, the lyrics 'I'm a slave bound to a cavern wall, I would break my neck even if I could fall but also this my right has been denied' clearly references to Plato's Allegory of the cave. Ambulance is a short story about a girl who takes shitloads of drugs and then kisses everybody and dances with them and as the party progresses, it becames more and more annoying. The title comes from an actual LSD trip when a girl (similar to the one from the song) jumped into a gutter everytime she thought she could hear the car's siren, shouting 'Ambulance!'. For some reason, I kept singing the riff over and over that night so it was just natural to joint these two together and make a song.