Track list:
01. Helplessness
02. Making Up for Lost Time
03. I, Deviant
04. Gasping for Air [Tab]
05. Constriction
06. The Forgiving Embrace [Tab]
07. Soothing Torture
08. Clawing at the Nerve
09. A Prayer for the Feeble
10. Fallout
Label: Black Balloon Records.
Release date: January 2005.
Recorded between December 2003 and February 2004 at Caliban Studios and Musikkloftet, Oslo, Norway.
Recorded, Engineered and mixed by Tommy Hjelm.
Lead vocals recorded by Ole Petter Andreassen.
Mastered by Tom Kvålsvoll at Strype Audio.
Produced by Tommy Hjelm.
Some interesting facts:
# This is the first album where Truls plays drums and the first time Insense is officially a four-piece on album.
# The recording session includes the songs on the album, as well as three songs that didn’t make the cut.
# Tommy originally wanted A Prayer for the Feeble to be a hidden track before track #1. He didn’t think the song would stand out on its own. Eventually it replaced Modern Day Siren as the next last song.
# Some of these songs are very old. The first preproduction containing what would become Constriction, Clawing at the Nerve, I, deviant and Spawn of the Wicked dates back to Nov 21st 2002.
# Fallout was made by Tommy for his former band Syndicate. Syndicate played the song a few times live, and it was the pride of the band in their latter days. Insense eventually adopted it, after having rewritten the entire ending, as well as the 2nd verse, and the vocal lines.
# Spawn of the Wicked and Modern Day Siren didn’t have lyrics until well after the recording of the vocals had started. They eventually didn’t end up on the album either.
# In fact Modern Day Siren’s working title was “Treer’n”. This is because it was the third song Insense had ever made. It was intended for the first album but was voted down just before recordings started. It dates back to 1999.
# Though Eigil isn’t singing on the record, he has contributed to a few of the vocal lines.
# The graphics for this record was done by Edward Myhre, who was the band’s roadie on their European Tour 2003. His picture is in the media section.
# The picture of the man holding the two children can be found on a tile wall at the club “Der Kunterbunt” in Schwerte, Germany. Insense played there October 4th 2003 and immediately fell in love with the painting. So much in fact, that they tracked down the painter Peter Blatzovski, and asked if they could use it as a cover for their next album. Obviously he gave his kind permission!
# The Grand Piano intro on Helplessness was originally just a test that Tommy did on the studio’s new recording equipment. Made on the fly, an idea for some decent matching Insense riffs surfaced, and soon enough the intro for the new album was complete. The Grand Piano intro on the album is the original unedited test version! The “radio comms” in the background is just gibberish. Tommy tried to imitate some of his friends while making them
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