When you're too familiar with that feeling of breaking your neck against the heavy riffs of Faspitch, then hearing their songs played with the rich warm tones of an acoustic guitar might be a bit of a shock to your aching muscles that seek comfort in multiple pain relief patches.
On Friday (31/05), the Filipino metal act released a collection of acoustic versions of their songs on music streaming platforms. These tracks were originally only available on Tower of Doom's YouTube channel, but the fans absolutely loved the laid back renditions that were put out, so Faspitch made the decision to package their acoustic releases as an album.
Bandwagon caught up with Faspitch vocalist Henry Allen to talk about their new acoustic album, what pushed them to pursue it, and their plans for the rest of the year.
Why the title Skinned?
We went through several possible album names and this one just painted the picture of us stripping the outer layers off of these songs and exposing their souls to the listeners.
What inspired you to release an acoustic album?
During the release for 'Heart Strength' back in 2022, we decided to supplement the release of that single with some laid back versions of older songs and of 'Heart Strength' itself. We decided to do some full band versions for older songs and make some interesting duet type renditions for TOD singles such as 'Flame', 'Skin', and 'Pain'.
We had so much fun doing that, and the reception was really good, that we decided to do it again when we released our recent single 'This Love'. By the time we'd done all these laid back versions we realized we had enough to actually put it out there as an album, and the demand was there too from fans who were really enjoying this different side to us and wanted to be able to listen to them on Spotify and other platforms instead of just YouTube.
How different is it working on an acoustic album compared to your usual setup?
It's a different challenge for sure. And especially with this one as we recorded this all live and in front of a camera crew as well. There are videos to all but one of these songs by the way, on YouTube.
We didn't track the songs individually, we basically sat down in a room as a band and performed the songs together. Without the loudness and distortion of how our songs are usually, our imperfections can really stand out so you have to really be on point. But at the same time it's that feeling of being exposed and yet still trying your best to do justice to the song that really makes acoustic/stripped down versions of songs shine.
Who’s the personnel on the album?
All the awesome folks at Tower of Doom were in on this one of course and we could never have done it without them so huge thanks to TOD. Big thanks to our family over at Nemesis too. Russ, John, Martin, Andrew, and myself all labored to make each one of these songs come to life and we're really proud of these versions. Especially proud to have Zel and Gelo of December Avenue guest on two of the songs as well.
What are your plans following the release of Skinned?
Folks will have initially thought when we announced this, that this would be our third album, but it isn't, not yet. No less interesting I guarantee you, so do please check out Skinned. For this year we're releasing another single toward the end of the year, and we're aiming for the third album release for 2025. The songs are there, so if the stars and release schedules align 2025 will be a fun year for fans of Faspitch music!
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