How Soon? Sweet Achilles are an experimental Heavy Metal group, based in East Sussex. All members had previously played together in other bands, playing shows at local venues and supporting touring acts. The current lineup came together after the success of an informal reunion ‘jam’ suggested the possibility of an ongoing project.
Partly due to the relaxed circumstances surrounding their formation, the band’s eventual lineup proved slightly unconventional: the members coming together on the basis of their long-term friendship, rather than their musical compatibility. An upshot of this was that the initial line-up included two bass players as well as a guitarist and drummer. None of the four musicians considered themselves a competent vocalist and the band therefore spent its first year writing the instrumental parts for its songs whilst searching for an additional member to provide vocals. Finding someone to fit both the material and the tight knit nature of the group proved difficult and the search was abandoned after the band discovered they were able to perform successfully as an instrumental act.
The music that has since resulted represents an attempt to explore the possibilities offered by this combination whilst, as far as possible, avoiding its becoming a gimmick. One of the basses is therefore played in a manner that bridges the gap between conventional bass and electric guitar whilst the guitar itself provides a melodic complexity that leads and directs the music in the place of the absent vocal. The resulting songs are not remarkably different to those of the artists HS?SA enjoy and are influenced by, with the band’s compositional obstacles merely offering them some new opportunities within this formula.
The musicians that make up the band avow diverse and occasionally opposing musical tastes and interests which feed into the music they produce collectively. The group as a whole is most influenced by the work of contemporary Post-Metal artists as well as that of more conventional Rock and Metal groups utilizing more complex arrangements and experimental instrumentation. These include: Isis, Pelican, Red Sparowes, Devil Sold His Soul, Explosions in the Sky, Cult of Luna, Tool, Russian Circles and others.
Two members of HS?SA also play in the band’s Sister-Group, the Post-Hardcore / Thrash Metal outfit, Rachel’s Got A Flamethrower.
Hi, yeah I would love to Master new recordings. I'm trying to get my website finished at the moment, proclaiming my wares to the world, (shameless plug: www.easotone.co.uk) but it's not finished yet (unplug...) I had another go on your recordings I've already got and have managed to get a much clearer sound all round, whilst there is still plenty of low end (I can't live without it!) there's much more clarity in the tone of the basses. Be a little while before I can get to running it off properly and getting a cd to you due to above website malarkey and going to France (yay!)
....do that and Pete will probably set up a bar tab for you. Not that I / we think there's much wrong with the drums / the mix (the set closer we're especially happy with) but Pete loves his drummage.
Sure your dear pa's probably already mentioned this, but we'd be very much up for you mastering whatever we end up recording in August.
Hi guys. Thanks for the thanks for engineering the tracks! I'm not quite happy with em though - I always intended to come and revisit them once the dust had settled a bit, listening to them, I thinks I should run off some versions with a bit more drums in the mix, then they'd be spot on IMO. Anyway guys - peace!
