Released May 24, 2017
Produced and performed by Jay Gironimi
Liner Notes
Slowbleed’s You Will Be Forgotten is the secret All Hallow’s Evil album and this collection of covers is the secret Slowbleed album, so I’m not quite sure what that makes it in the All Hallow’s Evil discography.
Technically, this was released on Soundcloud a few years back, but I never put it on Bandcamp or any of the more traditional streaming services because they’re covers and I didn’t feel like dealing with the licensing that comes with remaking someone else’s song so tens of people can listen to it.
This all exists to see if I could come up with a way of tracking guitars that didn’t require me to double everything. In the last decade or so, I’ve wanted to humanize my music a bit more and I thought having a single guitar track in each speaker would leave a few of the seams and rough edges. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make a wall of sound that way. But I tried!
-Jay G, March 2024
Track by Track
“As We Suffer” (All Hallow’s Evil cover)- Yeah, it’s a little too cute to “cover” a song I wrote, but I upgraded my sample library and I wanted to see what it could do with a song I know. Plus, most of this was just recorded to entertain my wife.
I wish I had broken down and double tracked these guitars, but I guess the orchestral bits are the real star of the show.
“Permanent Solution” (Paradise Lost cover)- I celebrate the entire Paradise Lost catalog. I love the way their sound changes, but is always recognizable. At the time I made this, I was obsessed with the way the songs from their Host album sounded live and thought it would be an easy layup to just “guitar up” one of those songs. Unfortunately, I never quite got the vocals down, so it’s more of a curiosity than anything else.
“I Was Made for Loving You” (KISS Cover)- The biggest influence on this one was the Chipmunks on 16 Speed version of “Call Me”. Something about playing pop songs slow and low really appealed to me, but I also wanted to pick a song I knew well, so KISS it was. It’s the most popular song from this EP on Soundcloud, but that’s a low bar. I always thought this was really good and should have been much bigger, which is not a particularly humble thing to say about something you made, but since I didn’t write it, I think that’s fine.
“Rain” (The Cult cover)- This was the first cover I recorded for this. The music came very easily to me, but it took me quite a while to find my way in it vocally. Sometimes recording covers can be real funny, because I’m often laying down songs I’ve sung hundreds of times in the car and while I’m in the car, it pretty much sounds record perfect. Then when it’s just me and a backing tracking, I’m shocked when my voice doesn’t sound like Ian Astbury.
“Desperado” (Alice Cooper cover) – I love Alice Cooper. I think the Alice Cooper Group albums are the epitome of rock and roll. I’ve probably listened to Alice Cooper for more hours than any other artist. But I’m also scared of becoming Alice Cooper.
I was not alive when the best Alice Cooper albums came out, but a lot of what appeals to me about them is they still feel transgressive. Ever since the 90s—possibly earlier, but that’s when I really remember it—Alice has subtly reframed a lot of the early stuff to fit more with his current sensibilities. That’s fine; I’m probably doing the same thing with this website. But without getting too far into the woods here, hearing someone who seemed to be so far ahead of the curve on gender walk all of that back was particularly disappointing. Mostly because it worked. I can’t see the old stuff in the same light anymore. Maybe someday I can, but it feels almost like I got fooled by a marketing stunt.
“Big Brother” (David Bowie cover)- This was the hardest song to record because Mike Garson is doing a lot of real musician stuff in the original and trying to translate that into my somewhat ham fisted style took a bit of thinking. I remember hating this at the time, but listening back, it’s better than I originally gave it credit for, possibly because I now understand I sound nothing like Bowie.
The Official All Hallow's Evil Archive 