Info

Artist: Reported Failure (Billie Beckett, Vin Peters, Matt Collins, KC James, and Robert Edwards)
Album: Darkness
Label: Studio60
Release Date: July 6 2012
Producer: Vin Peters, and Jason Smith
Lyrics: Billie Beckett, Matt Collins, and Vin Peters
Length: 58:38
Format: Mp3 download, CD, Colored Vinyl
Personnel:
Vocalists:

Billie Beckett......... The Darkness

Amy Meyer......... Sarah

Yulia......... Justice

James Urie......... Peace

The Darkness Chorus
Aaron Marks
Matt Collins
Nicole Woods
Ryan Williams
Vin Peters
Clara Thompson
Mitchell Hughes
Alice Mason

KC James......... Additional Backing Vocals

Strings:

Matt Collins - Bass
Vin Peters - Guitar
KC James - Guitar
Billie Beckett - Guitar

Mitchell Hughes - Piano
Alec Watson - Harp
The London Symphony Orchestra

Percussion:

Robert Edwards - Drums
Rafael Gomez - Bongos
Rachel Jones - Xylophone
The Darkness Chorus - Clapping
The London Symphony Orchestra

Everything Else:

The London Symphony Orchestra

Tracklisting:

1. 6771 (5:42)
2. Being Man (4:32)
3. A Dramatic Turn of Events (4:02)
4. Darkness I (6:18)
5. A Pattern of Distress (3:24)
6. Nevaeh (5:01)
7. Crumbling (4:46)
8. Darkness II (3:22)
9. 2001 (6:12)
10. Writing My Own Eulogy (3:30)
11. Lithium (3:35)
12. Darkness III (5:53)
13. New America (4:21)

Recording
The recording of Reported Failure's fifth album was certainly unlike the recording of anything they had ever done before. Basically all of it was recorded while the band was out on The No Venues Tour. The band recorded the album in everywhere from Holland, to Italy, to China, to India, with the most major recordings being done in London, England and on the bus. "Although we worked in literally every town we stopped in for the tour, London was the most serious recording." says Vin Peters, "We also recorded little bits like voacals or guitar from the tour bus with the help of fantastic technology". The album was recorded literally everywhere, with Robert Edwards even recording the drums for a couple of songs while the band was doing a soundcheck for their show in Venice. Most of the recording was done in Londin with the band either flying back for a couple of days between shows, and a whole lot being done while they were in England at the start of the tour. "Obviously the foundations of the song had to come first. Some people do things different ways but we've always found it best to record drums and bass first and then add guitars and then mix all of that perfectly before adding the vocals." says drummer Robert Edwards. The recording was extremely hectic to say the least. The last song to be finished actually wasn't done until just a week ago. One thing that made it so crazy and the reason why the band kept going back to London was because the album features a whole lot of orchestral elements to it. The London Symphony Orchestra has something to do with just about every song. It's not just that, but there are nine guest vocalists on this album, plus the production work of Jason Smith on some tracks! Billie Beckett commented, "Recording was insanity. We worked on something every single day from October to a week ago. tHe day after we finished it was the first day I have really slept since before we started."

Songwriting/Concept
The songwriting for what promises to be Reported Failure's best album yet is aprocess that has been going on since 2009. "Not everyone really understands what it is like to be an insonia plagued frontman for a band" explains Billie Beckett, "You just fill notebooks with every thought that comes to your head whether it pours out in song from, as a poem, or just journal entires. I have been writing about my experiences forever, and the songs on this album are about specific things that have been going on in my life for several years". The experiences he is talking about have been rather fun gossip for the punk scene, but for Billie they are several years of tragedy and heartbreak. Billie has told the first part of the story many times, including on the song "Goodby, My Son" from Reported Failure's latest EP. "Basically I gave everything to and fathered a son with a girl who left me. There are a lot of lyrics about that and some throwbacks to the fact that I like my son grew up mostly without a father. Then things kind of fast forward through the time where I was having to get over all of that and to just other things acting as a catalyst to remind me of that. A lot of the labum is also devoted to my suicide attempt and the death of my sister back in September". The album isn't all about Billie though. And he says that "Although pieces of songs are old, no song on this album wasn't modified". The reason that the songs had to be modified is because of the epic allusion that the album makes. As Reported Failure always do, they make a statement about the greater world with this album. The album follows the story of the characters William and Freedom who were introduced in the bands EP which acts as a prequel to this album. The characters however both are just turned into one single character, The Darkness. "The concept is really an allusion from one's personal struggles to the struggles of America, or freedom. The idea is to make someone's life really feel significant to the bigger world because it is" says Beckett. The album also features other characters each "plsyed" by another vocalist. Amy Meyer is Sarah, the girl who left Billie, Yulia is Justice which represents Beckett's sister, and James Urie is Peace which represents Beckett's son. The allusion is also made clear in the artwrk for the album, which is Billie with the american flag sort of printed on his face.

Sound
Darkness has been said to sound like many things, but the quote that has been most talked about is when Vin Peters said "THis album more closely resemlbes The Phantom of the Opera than it resembles Post-Grunge Catastrophe". The first single from the album, Crumbling, does have many orchestral elements, and the whole album will have orchestral elements, but it isn't as if Reported Failure are going to put the guitars as an undertone to the orchestra. "We went heavier, more heartpounding, and dirty with our entire song" says Matt Collins. The days of Reported Failure being a pop punk band are clearly far behind them. The album is more like heavy punk or post-hardcore with the band's classic emo tint, but with a whole lot of violins, brass instruments, pianos, organs, and of course lots and LOTS of vocal harmonizing. The production skills of Jason Smith were also employed, and certain songs contain more bizzare industrial noise that Smith likes to use. The album vaguely resembles many things Reported Failure have done in the past, but fits none perfectly, and is very far from the pop-punk songs of their first album, parts of their second and third, or most of their fourth.

OOC Info
Yes that is the release date, and yes I do plan to start the track by track now. The first song should be up this weekend. The reason I'm doing this is because every other time I've ever done a track by track it has been during a break from school, and even then I never seem to get each song posted before the release date. Now I am in school and this album has more songs and all of the songs are much more intense than anything I've ever done. So I'll probably post about one or two songs per week which means the last one will be posted right around the release date.

I'm not going to do sounds like for any songs simply because although there is probably something that sounds like what I imagine, I do't listen to it and therefor don't know about it. But in the spoiler are a few videos. Most of the songs have aspects from some of them and if you imagine all of those songs had thirteen different babies then those would be the songs on this album. Basically the music on this is a result of me spending all summer listening to two things: Chiodos and music from Wicked.


I really hope you enjoy it and as always feedback is apriciated.