Pretty Maids

[Glen]

OK guys its time to start getting excited about the new Pretty Maids album called 'Pandemonium' which is now due 14th May 2010 (bought forward a few days!).......here are some words from the band -

 

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Pretty Maids studio report, March 2010

 

As usual, there’s always one song that sort of catapults the whole songwriting process into action. In this case it was the song now called “ Cielo drive “ that started the whole thing. It was written last summer (2009) during a rehearsal for some festival we were about to do, and as with the best songs it was more or less written within half an hour or so.

 

Up until then we barely hadn’t written any new music since the Wake Up to the Real World sessions, nor had we any specific plans on doing a new album for that matter. But it sort of started something and during the autumn we negotiated a new deal with Frontiers Records.

 

Since the members of the band these days logistically are spread out all over Denmark, it makes it difficult to rehearse as we did in the old days on a regular basis. So we decided to hire some locations that we used on the WUTTRW sessions to speed up the process and get the album ready for a spring 2010 release.

 

So we teamed up altogether in the beginning of November for a three day rehearsal at what we call, “Camp rock” and sort of cooked up several ideas that through the process actually ended up as finished songs.

 

On through November and December we did another three of these “Camp Rock” gatherings and played whenever we felt like it and partied at the rest of the time (not exactly surprising to those who know us).

 

I guess that none of us actually believed that we would be ready to start recording in January since there was a lot to be written and it was really uphill. But never the less before New Years Eve, we had eight songs more or less ready to go. During the period of writing we also for the first time in 20 years had ourselves a permanent keyboard player since Morten Sandager, who’d been playing live with us since 2006 split with his former band Mercenary and became a full time member (of course not until he passed the examination of the mandatory drinking test, ha ha)

 

That of course means that all the songs this time was written with keyboard in mind and the fact that writing and playing with a keyboarder being physically there gave the songs a new and different dimension, compared to the way that we have worked in recent years. Personally I think that a lot of the songs on Pandemonium have elements of the Future World/Red Hot and Heavy era. But then again some of the stuff is also pretty modern and up to date and above all really melodic. And the combination of all that has just turned out to be a real good album, which we all in the band are pretty proud of, the best we’ve done in many years.

 

So on January 11th, with eight songs under our belt, we entered The Hansen studios with producer Jacob Hansen with whom we were about to work with for the first time. We’d briefly met and didn’t as such know much about each others way of working, but things went smooth from day one.

 

During the recordings we spent quite a lot of time trying to detune the individual songs to see how it worked and sounded, one song was in fact totally ripped apart and changed, for the better though. We also wrote a brand new song while being there since eight songs weren’t enough. On top of that we’ve taken a left over track from the WUTTRW sessions (Beautiful Madness) and redone the vocals as well as added keyboards to it + one cover song (yet a secret, maybe a bonus track, but definitely not anything you expect from us, ha ha)

 

As I’m writing this little update we’re still in the process of mixing the album, but so far we’re really pleased with the sound of the first mixes. I think Jacob Hansen is doing a seriously fucking good job here, these songs really comes out of the speakers, right in your face.

 

All I’ve got left to say is that we all sincerely hope that you share our feelings about the new album and that you’ll enjoy it as much as we enjoyed doing it.

 

The album Pandemonium will be released on frontiers Records on May 21 2010, and will include the following songs:

 

Pandemonium

I.N.V.U

Little drops of heaven

One World One Truth

Final Day of Innocence

It Comes at Night

Cielo Drive

Old Enough to Know

Breathless

Beautiful Madness

 

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and here is a studio blog with some snippets of the song 'One World One Truth'....sounds really quite cool

 

http://www.youtube.com/prettymaidsdenmark

 

Cheers

[Geoff]

Awesome. Honestly can't wait for this. Hopefully this should be available on these Aussie online stores for a good price and I'll get a pre-order in as soon as it pops up.

[crazynights]

Great band ,good news we gonna hear the new cd soon.

Hope to see them live, great music and smart lyrics.

[melodicrockoz]

I'm really excited about the band now having a permanent keysman

& even more excited about the direction the new album is headed in

[heaven&hell]

Looking forward to this and sure hope it's as good as the last disc.

[Dead Planet]

One of my favorite bands and any new release by these guys is a guaranteed pickup...

[Ali Rock]

This one of these bands that have made some of the best melodic hardrock songs (albums) from the 80-ies. It have been hard for them to match these releases. Spooked was really good and I kind of like Planet Panic as well. But apart from these two releases I don't think later albums have been good. I hope this album will be something like spooked since you can't really hope for a new Future world.

[Rockposer]

Looking forward to this and sure hope it's as good as the last disc.

 

+1

[Geoff]

This one of these bands that have made some of the best melodic hardrock songs (albums) from the 80-ies. It have been hard for them to match these releases. Spooked was really good and I kind of like Planet Panic as well. But apart from these two releases I don't think later albums have been good. I hope this album will be something like spooked since you can't really hope for a new Future world.

Funny, I actually thought 'Wake up to the real' world completely destroyed 'Planet Panic.' I like all Pretty Maids albums but 'Planet Panic' was one of their weakest for me.

[heaven&hell]

This one of these bands that have made some of the best melodic hardrock songs (albums) from the 80-ies. It have been hard for them to match these releases. Spooked was really good and I kind of like Planet Panic as well. But apart from these two releases I don't think later albums have been good. I hope this album will be something like spooked since you can't really hope for a new Future world.

Funny, I actually thought 'Wake up to the real' world completely destroyed 'Planet Panic.' I like all Pretty Maids albums but 'Planet Panic' was one of their weakest for me.

 

I thought Wake Up to the Real World was their best since Anything Worth Doing but I did like Planet Panic and Carpe Diem but prefered Planet Panic between those two.

[Ali Rock]

This one of these bands that have made some of the best melodic hardrock songs (albums) from the 80-ies. It have been hard for them to match these releases. Spooked was really good and I kind of like Planet Panic as well. But apart from these two releases I don't think later albums have been good. I hope this album will be something like spooked since you can't really hope for a new Future world.

Funny, I actually thought 'Wake up to the real' world completely destroyed 'Planet Panic.' I like all Pretty Maids albums but 'Planet Panic' was one of their weakest for me.

I like it since it's different style (more modern and hardhitting) compared to the other albums in their discography. I hated it in the beginning but I found it really cheap used and after a number of spins it really grew. It can't beat the best moments of Pretty maids.

[phaffas]

Always solid. Damn its getting to be a big year!

[rockdoc]

Cannot wait for this release! Man what would we do with out FRONTIERS RECORDS ???

[TYTAN3K]

Album cover and 90 second sample of the first single are up on the Maids site.

 

http://www.prettymaids.dk/

[Invisible_man]

just listened to "Little Drops of Heaven" on youtube, great song, great melody.

[Desslar]

The single sounds disturbingly AOR. I hope there's more metal stuff on the album.

[Rockposer]

I've now listened to the whole album and i'm lovin' it. A bit AOR? Nope certainly not. It has the Pretty Maids sound and has made this fan very happy.

[Glen]

I've now listened to the whole album and i'm lovin' it. A bit AOR? Nope certainly not. It has the Pretty Maids sound and has made this fan very happy.

 

Backed mate..only a first listen, but very much like what i hear.

 

The title track hits you like a freight train!

[Leykis101]

Im floored, speechless, this album is so much more then I was ready for, Im really at a loss for words!

[TYTAN3K]

I can barely wait another minute to hear this thing.

 

For those of you lucky enough to have it already...can you do a track by track? Sorry, I'm a huge fan and am devouring any bit of news I can get on this.

 

Brian

[Geoff]

Hey Brian, I'll see what I can muster up. Only 2 spins so far, but pretty memorable disc:

 

1. Pandemonium ; great heavy opener in true Pretty Maids fashion. Sure crowd pleaser.

2. I.N.V.U. ; killer stuff. One of the best songs on the CD. Heavy, but very melodic with an excellent chorus.

3. Little Drops of Heaven ; we've probably all heard this. Most melodic/commercial thing on the CD, and arguably my favourite song. Love this one.

4. One World One Truth ; can't remember this one exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's a good, solid fast paced heavy rocker.

5. Final Day of Innocence ; another highlight. Good heavy rocker with a super catchy chorus. Excellent stuff.

6. Cielo Drive ; awesome fast paced metal track with a subject matter of Charles Manson. Haha. One of the best barn-storming metal tracks I've heard from them.

7. It Comes at Night ; killer heavy and melodic verses with awesome rythm guitar, only slightly let down but a pretty basic chorus. Great track, but a huge chorus would have suited it better, imo.

8. Old Enough to Know ; nice balladic track. Not amazing, but good hook and pleasing stuff.

9. Beautiful Madness ; another cool more melodic hard rocker. I like this tune.

10. Breathless ; and another balladic/mid-tempo one to close things off. Better than the Treat song of the same name and a nice way to close the disc.

 

Honestly, I always expect quality from Pretty Maids, but this is even better than I thought it'd be. I thought it might be a little rushed and a "may-as-well" kind of effort, but the band do not skip a beat and this is definitely one of their strongest CDs in recent years. There is such a high quality of song writing on display here... just seems to come to them so naturally. Superb vocals again, tight as sin musicianship, killer production job with good heavy sound. No Pretty Maids fan will be disappointed.

[Leykis101]

Geoff and I have similar melodic tastes on the stuff we agree about, we almost always agree on the exact same points, like if theres a random melodic disc you mention, generally me a geoff will like exactly the same tracks as each other, so it's no big occurence Im going to have to go ahead and agree with with him on almost every review he gave track for track, except I like Little Drops Of Heaven and Old Enough To Know probably a lot less then he did, as it really takes me ALLOT to get any to ballads, and outside of the killer production, and it's Pretty Maids, I could have honestly taken an 8 song disc if they had left the Ballads off of this, just not a ballad fan at all, outside of that I think he's spot on, my favorite are I.N.V.U. & Beautiful Madness, Pandemonium is killer, but when don't they come out of the gate rocking your balls off? seems like thats always been a staple in PM history, the production on this is absolutely fucking stellar, it's almost like how much more can production be taken to the edge without going over, because they absolutly DO NOT GO OVER THE EDGE WITH THE PRODUCTION ON THIS!! it's just squeaky clean, well mixed, well mastered, and an all around perfect production job, imo, not to overboard on the bgv's, not to phoney sounding, just enough to make it sound perfect! your not going to believe it when you hear it, I was not expecting anything this good to be perfectly honest with you, maybe that's why I think it's so good, either way, it's fucking killer, and im not sorry i bought it, not at all!!

[TYTAN3K]

Awesome guys. Thanks a lot!

 

From the samples I've heard the production does sound huge...which has me salivating as I thought the production on Wake Up was a little bland. That album actually sounded rushed to me. I truly think getting Sandager in there has done wonders for these guys both from a songwriting perspective and an overall sound perspective.

 

Listen to me...I haven't even heard this thing yet. Can't wait.

 

Brian

[Ali Rock]

Sounds promising. Best I*ve heard from them in a long time.

[Glen]

Hey Brian, I'll see what I can muster up. Only 2 spins so far, but pretty memorable disc:

 

1. Pandemonium ; great heavy opener in true Pretty Maids fashion. Sure crowd pleaser.

2. I.N.V.U. ; killer stuff. One of the best songs on the CD. Heavy, but very melodic with an excellent chorus.

3. Little Drops of Heaven ; we've probably all heard this. Most melodic/commercial thing on the CD, and arguably my favourite song. Love this one.

4. One World One Truth ; can't remember this one exactly, but I'm pretty sure it's a good, solid fast paced heavy rocker.

5. Final Day of Innocence ; another highlight. Good heavy rocker with a super catchy chorus. Excellent stuff.

6. Cielo Drive ; awesome fast paced metal track with a subject matter of Charles Manson. Haha. One of the best barn-storming metal tracks I've heard from them.

7. It Comes at Night ; killer heavy and melodic verses with awesome rythm guitar, only slightly let down but a pretty basic chorus. Great track, but a huge chorus would have suited it better, imo.

8. Old Enough to Know ; nice balladic track. Not amazing, but good hook and pleasing stuff.

9. Beautiful Madness ; another cool more melodic hard rocker. I like this tune.

10. Breathless ; and another balladic/mid-tempo one to close things off. Better than the Treat song of the same name and a nice way to close the disc.

 

Honestly, I always expect quality from Pretty Maids, but this is even better than I thought it'd be. I thought it might be a little rushed and a "may-as-well" kind of effort, but the band do not skip a beat and this is definitely one of their strongest CDs in recent years. There is such a high quality of song writing on display here... just seems to come to them so naturally. Superb vocals again, tight as sin musicianship, killer production job with good heavy sound. No Pretty Maids fan will be disappointed.

 

Yeah backed, and one thing Pretty Paids can teach Treat is how to write an intro to an album. The beginning of Pandemonium is excellent in the way it builds up to the crescendo of the first keybord and riff. Just magic.....and then that verse hits you like a freight train. Great stuff.

 

One surprise is that you cant 'remember' One Truth....man that song is excellent - hard hitting rocker with great chorus and solo. Love it.

 

I labelled 'It Comes At Night' as the album's only real filler, but ive listened to it a few times now and really like it. No real chorus as Geoff points out, but the pre chorus more than makes for that and the keybords in the middle are excellent....love that bit.

 

Yet another huge album for 2010.

 

& as Cody says...the production is just stellar.

 

Cheers