Chimaira's Mark Hunter Laying Down Vocal Tracks On New Album

Chimaira vocalist Mark Hunter has posted and update to the band's site about the writing process and his experience laying down vocals this weekend. Here's what he posted:

"Hey everyone. I hope our friends in the US and A had a good holiday. I spent the night tracking. I am a little behind schedule but there is good reason. I haven't really spoken much about the lyrics and songs and themes for this record so I figured I'd let you in on a couple things.

"I intentionally came into the studio without one lyric or vocal idea. The majority of the songs written for this record were written on the fly by us jamming in the bus. Two hours later we had a song. After touring we continued that spontaneous style of writing and it was an amazing feeling feeding off of each others ideas and just seeing where the riffs would take us. I feel this is Chimaira in it's purest and most vulnerable form.

"I felt that I wanted to harness that same raw talent on the microphone as well. I basically freestlye over a song, find patterns I like or words I might say and then build from there. I construct the lyrics and then go in to track it. After that I sit on it for a day, and then come back and fix things here and there.

"I've done this method in the past with songs like Power Trip, Severed, Paralyzed, Down Again, Pure Hatred, etc.. so it's not a new thing for me. But to do an entire record like this, that's a first.

"I have four songs left at this point and I wish I had more. This is the most fun I've had doing vocals for a record ever.

"I also wanted to talk about how cool Chris' samples are coming out. He is taking these songs to another level. He has always been able to do that with our songs, but this time around he is really prominent and some of his parts carry parts of the song rather than just adding a layer. We even have one song where it's just him and I for a couple of parts. It's definitely different and exciting."