Here's a translation of the studio diary we wrote during the recording. It was originally published at Tuhma -website in Finnish. This version was translated by Jukka Paldanius.

It's time to record our third album. Yesterday we packed our gear and guys to the van and headed off to Seawolf Studios in Helsinki. Our goal is to record 8 new and grim songs composed during the last spring and summer, party out in the quality restaurants of the metropolitan area and frighten little children. Our feelings before the sessions are great, because the song material is strong and has some "best of all time"-hit moments. But by the time of October we'll probably all be hanging ourselves.

So welcome to observe the progress of our session for the next 28 days. Have a bad fall, perkele.

Ok, guess it's time for an update. We'll try to be more punctual in the future. The week started with recording drums and all sorts of misfortune. When we got to the studio, we found out that the information hadn't gone all the way to the staff about Pasi's double bass kit. So there wasn't two bassdrum microphones available that were alike. So we spent the day tuning the drums and exploring sounds. At the soundcheck the other snare microphone decided to break as well.

Tuesday started with much nicer feelings when we got another mic for the double bass and another mic for the snare. Everything was going smooth until the replaced second snare mic broke too. Bad karma, I'm telling you.

But after these small initial incidents we got it rolling and got the drum tracks for some cheery songs like 'These Hours of Despair', 'The Empty Skies' and 'Too Cold for the Tears', among others. The drum tracks seem to be coming out the tightest so far. Soon we'll have all the drums recorded and then we're transferring to the wonderful world of extreme bassplaying.

But that wasn't really all that important, there's happened something much more special: when we visited Musamaailma on monday to shop for some strings and cables, Emppu from TikTak was there too. Perkele, wonderful.

In the morning we got the second mic for the bassdrums and got to work. Double-Pasanen was on a roll and got four songs tracked. One mic for the snare got busted too, but these things happen, said Vatanen (Ari Vatanen, legendary rallydriver). In the evening I went out to drink some of my favourite beverage, free booze, even though the other whimps in the band wouldn't keep company. Saw a pair of boobs too.

We started early in the morning again and Pasi was on a roll again. The first day without technical difficulties. Got the drums for the last songs of the album tracked and left the cover song for thursday. And we're not telling what song it is. And surprise surprise, beer started to taste sweet and we had no options but to go to Hevimesta to drink 1 euro pints and embarrass ourselves in heavy-karaoke. Luckily I wasn't the only one who sang a bit off, since Martti ("Danger-Marty" Matti Honkonen) pulled off such a hot interpretation of the Scorpions. Still, sorry for all of those who had to witness this spectacle against their will.

Oh and there's one more thing that happened in the day. Me and Martti saw Aira Samulin (famous fitness-mummy) when we went to Musamaailma. Helsinki is a mystical place

Because of last nights activities we didn't start working until the afternoon. Pasi whacked the cover song in a pretty much single take and then it was Martti's turn to tackle the bass. Of course all the messing around and searching for sound used up some time but eventually we got four songs finished with the bass. Then Martti got tired and didn't feel like he could do more. Well, tomorrow we'll start again early.

It's been a bit boring day and I wasn't even really hung-over."

Mikko still here, the others can't seem to be bothered. Oh well, today we tracked the rest of the bassguitars and Martti did a pretty good job. Some licks are getting awfully close to Primus soon :) Drank beer too.

Double-Pasanen whimped out early in the day to mingle with the ladies. A good partyboy gone bad, but maybe it'll settle down with some wanking, hopefully. Nay, Pasi is wonderful. Oh yeah, me and Martti bought significant amounts of beer from the shop nearby and it went down really well. The guys worked on the sound of their guitars for multiple hours and the turd got polished.

Jämy (Jämsen or Jamsen for those without scandic letters) finetuned his guitar with an evil grin on his face and without results. We're going out of tune, but we're ok with it and it sounds good. Now that we're rich and we've bought expensive gear, everything sounds great, even when out of tune. But back to the point.

So me and Martti went to Hevimesta (it's the closest bar and has cheap booze). We talked deeply about playing bass and microphones. Karaoke of course was in the picture too. Sorry once again. Tomorrow Amorphis is playing and Jämy thought about being spaced out too. Oh my, to what a condition a strange town can get people into. Let's continue tomorrow. Greetings to all our friends and families in Jyväskylä. Missing mom and you.

Tracking the guitars. Doing fine. Drunk, at least I am. I'll tell about today more accurately tomorrow. Thank you, yum.

I wake up somewhere in Helsinki with no idea where exactly. But it was a good afterparty. Took a train to the center and a ferry to the studio. My oh my, a young man smelling so bad that the japanese tourists didn't stay close for long. Amorphis was good from what I hear, but due to a couple reasons, I don't remember that much

Our recording engineer Sami Kokko also got carried away with drinking yesterday too, which I respect highly. See, he usually drinks about once a year and normally preaches on about the hazards of smoking. Oh well.

The guys were on a roll tracking guitars when I got back. Rhythm and background guitars are pretty much recorded and tomorrow we should have them all covered. Pasi came to dismantle his kit. Said he's going to be on vacation from now on, what ever that means. We made macaroni/chicken/bacon and cheese and it came out ok. Pretty significantly tired due to lack of sleep for several consecutive nights in a row. Our manager Ruusunen came to visit in the morning and that meant a pretty sure laugh. Quite a hero he is. A shower would do good, but I think I'll save it for the morning. I'm anticipating to spend a pretty rough night with the lizards.

So, it's been a week here at the studio. It's been nice even though I had some fears about what this might develop into. But yeah, the lizards last night were bad. Isto Hiltunen (a famous singer here) visited my dream and there were high places. It was so nice to wake up and find out it wasn't true. The nice lady from the studio, Virpi, brought about 4 pounds of smoked salmon. The hobos accepted this gladly. Jämy can't stand dill, but it went down ok. I wouldn't want to point at anyone, but it's a bit noticeable from the amount of swearing and tension that someone's missing his girlfriend. The hand won't cut it I guess. Happily I haven't been tense or pissed off about anything. But with some hate the guitar sounds good :) And back to the point again.

Today we messed around with a baritone guitar and we just have to use it. It has such a fierce sound to it. Our beliefs that this will be our best album this far are getting stronger every day. I'll fetch Martti to write some more so you won't have to read my babbles every day.

Yeap. The soundscape of the album is slowly emerging now that we have the rhythm guitars of Jämy and Raivio tracked along with the rhythm section of bass and drums. The start of the week went listening to the pounding of the drums and clanging of the bass. It's pretty sweet to notice how much the guitars add balls to the songs (I'm not bitter ;)). Some slight technical problems have occurred since the guys can't afford Gibsons and just play with low-budget eastern stuff. Then it's time to change the recording room and put a new gear in. Could've taken a sleepingbad and a pillow with me. The matresses, blankets etc are rumoured to have been aired last January. And there are no sheets. We'll just swallow dust and some weird red stuff from the matress. Don't know if the red stuff came from a girl or from some poor rocker's busted knee :)

Today we switched to a smaller recording room to record the acoustic pickings etc. We dug up one unbelievable gadget after another from the depths of the studio for the subtle parts and now we got the band sounding almost like old Rush!!! Oh cock it works, now even I got blown away, yeah!

So we got almost all of The Scorpions-styled parts recorded today. And boy was it emotional. And it almost got emotional on the ferry to Suomenlinna too. When entering, you could see a bunch of ticket collectors, every single one looking like those macho lesbians, ready to cut slightly more than just the head from a poor musician. Luckily the situation was under control thanks to some fast cellphone operating.

A seagull provoked some mirth by taking a dump on our recording engineer's head while he was jogging. How come those seagulls don't know how to behave in our capital! They're so god damn big anyway that they scare simple countryfolks like us more than the gonorrhea you could get from Töölö, or at least so they say.

The Headminister, meaning Hippi, or Head or Giant Head or Titcheek (a dear child has lots of names, the parents call him Aleksi, but it sounds a bit boring, doesn't it), popped by to the studio after a long time. He told us he had seen the pussy of The Sounds' singer from the side of the stage in the Kickstart festival in Jyväskylä. Our manager Ruusunen confirmed this happened. Those miniskirts, what a nice invention. Also our touring soundengineer Teijo had seen this and decided to light a smoke while admiring. I'm feeling a bit envious.. Have to visit the fishmarket tomorrow.

Jämy's nerves are tensing up day by day and it didn't help when the concentrating Markus was strapped to a chair. Well, got it on video happily. Martti is going home tomorrow already. Phew. Won't be easy. But there's one matress coming available so I don't have to sleep all wound up on a couch. And drunk tomorrow, thank you yum.

We still tracked some guitars. Jämy was a bit tense for a change :) And yeah, in the morning we went to buy new strings for the baritone and of course it went bad. Weren't long or thick enough. That's what the ladies always tell us, so it wasn't anything new.

Back to the point. Just a couple songs are without leads so the day didn't go to waste. Martti went home since all the nights spent on the matress started to show as maggots in his beard and I went to the bar with my hobo friend, Teemu Suominen, to watch Shade Empire's gig.

Our ill-fortuned recording engineer again got his share when he went jogging this morning. He likes to skip on the beach and today it backfired. A leap too close to a slippery rock on the beach ended up in the ocean and an angry man emerged. This wasn't all, when he headed back to the studio humbled by this endeavour, another seagull made it's deed on him. Again. Unbelievable luck.

Well, yesterday was an adventure once again. Shade Empire played a great gig even with their singer Harju (Pasi's soulmate from Kuopio) suffering from a broken rib that resulted when he fell over drunk in a staircase. Broken ribs aren't a rare thing in our band. Ask Ruusunen if it pays off to run against a hotel wall. Oh yeah, me and Suominen drank a few and maybe that last Jaegermeister was a bit too much. I ended throwing up to two full pints and some of it got on Teemu's shirt. But accidents happen. And this still isn't all.

Apparently some slightly gay middle-aged man really tried to make acquintance at the marketplace. After about 20 minutes of conversation got rid of him. I had to pretty strongly make apparent that I was straight before the guy understood. Isn't nice to be the subject of groping from grown men. Things like this don't happen back home in Jyväskylä.

After that I made it to a few bars and to a friends place to sleep and in the morning I felt like a winner again. Today I got some of the vocals recorded which was nice. It's going to be tender material and there was some vibration happening even in Sami's pants.

Today we started working on the synth sounds in Jyväskylä with Danger Marty's youngest brother Karate-Hannu in his workshop. Things are getting big since we're working on the album in two different towns, perkele. And I have to say, even with in a hellish hurry and with lots of fiddling about, the preliminary results promise a goddamn good outcome in this department as well. Almost slipped to drunkenness, yippee!!

The synthdesimator and photon torpedo department, good day. In Jyväskylä's end the synth stuff under is work and two songs away from being completed. Quite a sound one can come up with todays equipment, guess my synth is going to be upgraded after this album. And in drunken news, Martti was doing some vigorous shout-vomiting this morning at the low place camp. He'll soon be in shape for the olympics.

Guess it's my turn to write this now, since I don't feel like sleeping anymore and the others won't get anything done. There isn't that much to talk about the sessions, we've got all our parts recorded and have been mixing for a couple days.

On wednesday we had a swedish guest singer to do vocals on one song and holyfuckingshit it sounds great! There are a couple other great guests appearing on the album too, but more about them when it is time ;) It's going to be spectacular, now that the songs are finally taking their shape. On the same wednesday evening we had a big party to honour our guest, there were some people from Spinefarm present, as well as just random drunks, foreigners and white russians (20 liters of those folks) etc. And of course the guys from Private Line were there to entertain us for several days when they came in to mix their album. Greetings guys :) As the night went on, the gang scattered in a confused state of mind, some to Nosturi to watch Moonspell and some to this mystical Japanese party.

There isn't much to tell about thursday, since no one can remember anything about it. On friday I went to Tallinn with Mikko to eat some pepperstakes and drink beer. Which we got lots more on the way back, beer I mean. And we had a couple dozen bottles of spirits when we came back to Finland, yum. In the local mall some young female tripped on the straps of my pants and fell down, nearly dragging me with her. Then she had the nerve to get all angry at me when it was her fault. My my what manners..

And on the ferry back, while being slightly drunk already, Mikko decided to spill some of the expensive beverages on an older lady standing in front of him. But not to worry, our vocalist being the witty man he is, thought he'd handle the situation with mumbling in a foreign language "I'm sorry, I'm sorry". Mikko said there wouldn't be a problem, since the elderly woman didn't speak londonish. And our recording engineer Sami's bad luck seems to continue. When he stepped off the ferry to Suomenlinna's pier, a seagull took a dump on his cap. But this is just the beginning, slightly frustrated he continued to walk to the studio (about 50 yards), when another bird flew over him and did it's deed on the cap too :D Now enraged, he kicked a tree in front of the studio with a clearly dodgy technique, breaking his big toe. These things happen, but you might think not to the same guy over and over again :D

Oh well, still have to manage a week here. Actually, it wouldn't be a problem to stay for even a year if we're speaking the truth, it's been so much fun here. Now I'll go get some breakfast coffee, I'll get back to you. Lots of greetings to all our friends in Jyväskylä.

Ps. Aleksi says that it's going to be one hell of an album and I have a hangover. And the guest appearances are the best ever!

We got the mixing done properly. The last friday in the studio got used up finishing the songs and drinking beer. Some of us, me included, went to see the new Inferno-bar at Tampere. Two floors and a band playing. Good party anyway, free booze and Tapola's black sausages, yum.

On saturday the vocalist of a really well known domestic band came and sang for the cover song and everything is sounding top notch. That night we didn't party much, since our manager send us a threatening note to be cautious, since the promo pictures were going to be taken on sunday morning at 10 am. That's not right. Well, we hanged out being sober the whole farewell evening.

I bet those cigar smoking and cognac drinking richies were a bit stunned when the band, photographers, make-up and our manager stormed in to the lobby of Hotel Linna Palace which acted as the set on this sunday morning. Oh well, we got the job done properly. Thanks to the staff at the hotel, the photographers and make-up artists.

We've booked Finnvox for mastering, a week from now, the knobs will be turned by the lovely Minerva Pappi, who did our previous albums too. After that it's time to wait until boredom for the album to be released. I suppose this journal is coming to it's end. Thanks to Virpi, Mikko and the other people at Seawolf, Spinefarm, our manager Loiri, guest artists and especially our engineer Sami, who had to endure a tough session (a fifth incident happened also when he made a mistake of going to buy some herring, guess it doesn't need much explanations)

Thank you for reading and goodbye.

Hope -CD

1. Hope
2. These Hours of Despair
3. The Justice of Suffering
4. Don't Fall Asleep (Horror pt.2)
5. Too Cold for Tears
6. The Empty Skies
7. No Light, No Hope
8. Doomed to Walk the Earth

Don't Fall Asleep -CDS

1. Don't Fall Asleep (Horror pt.2)
2. These Low Lands (originally performed as 'Alavilla Mailla' by Timo Rautiainen & Trio Niskalaukaus)