Ogre Christ - Ogre Christ (2008) [2026 Remaster]

 Ogre Christ - "Ogre Christ" (2008) [2026 Remaster]

THE STORY OF OGRE CHRIST, A TALE AS OLD AS SLIME

               Okay... wow. So, in the Summer of 2007, I started an internship at a recording studio in Philadelphia. The studio was near my friend John's house so I went to see him one day and then we ended up going down to South Street and found his friend Mark. Somehow, that day, we ended up at my mom's house jamming on some melodic death metal and we decided we should be a band. I was initially partial to the name Penelope Crucifixion but, ultimately, we settled on the equally brutal and hilarious Ogre Christ. While we didn't have an official vocalist for a few months, John and Mark brought in their friend Pete to play guitar and we started writing songs right away. I don't think we ever even performed a cover. There was no real plan for what the songs would be about, just that they would be melodic death metal. But, as John and I started to write lyrics, it became clear that every song would be about a movie or video game. The band Bury Your Dead had done an album where all the song titles were named after Tom Cruise movies, and we thought it would be cool to have a theme. We practiced a lot, we recorded demos and Mark was really good at booking shows which we had pretty regularly.

             By mid 2008, we had a vocalist, Rob who was a friend of the other band members, and enough songs to record a full-length album. My longtime friend and roommate Steve was in the music production program at Drexel University where we both attended and was willing to record the album. I think he probably regrets doing so, in fact, I'm sure of it. We honestly worked him to the bone for no money. Sorry, Steve! Haha. The songs are really pretty dense. There are a lot of layered guitars and vocals, pianos, drum triggers, screaming and some really complex sections. To add the difficulty, our singer had just too much stuff going on in his life to be able to be at all the practices, shows, vocal practices and recording sessions and it basically fell upon the rest of the band to provide the majority the vocals. I think I probably sing the least of anybody on this record which is pretty rare for me. The recording sessions were long and they were fun but tense. The band was about to start playing some shows with pretty big bands and, while we had other merch, we really didn't want to show up to those gigs without an album to sell, so the pressure was on. The final touches on the 7-minute masterpiece that is "Cornelius" feature a really beautiful vocal performance by Steve's friend Morgan. Then it came time to edit and mix the album and that meant Steve and I repeatedly sitting at the mixing board at Drexel in the middle of the night. To make things more difficult, for some reason, the drum trigger hits and almost all of the vocals we're out of sync with the rest of the tracks so we just spent countless hours fixing them. It was deeply stressful.

           When we finally felt the record was done, we sent it to the band, Steve went home to rest, and I drove to the beach to clear my head for a couple of days. But within a few hours of getting there, I received a number of messages with a long list of complicated changes that the rest of the band wanted to make to the album before mastering. I honestly couldn't even comprehend beginning to tackle all of the suggested additional work so I put it out of my mind for the time being. As I drove home from the beach, Mark called me and reminded me that we had a show that night which I had totally forgotten about. So I went and picked up the gear and played the gig. But, after the show, the level of the rest of the band's resentment about the un-mastered album became apparent and, at one point, it seemed like I was almost going to get into a fist fight with the guitarist. After all that, I had had enough. I quit the band then and there and that's most of the story for my part. The band soon replaced me as well as the singer and went on to play some of those bigger shows as well as apparently remixing the album (I never heard the remixed album or received a copy if it did exist. In any case, I'm unable to find it online).

            Fast forward 18 goddamned years and, suddenly, I decide it's time to close this chapter of my life that was left wide open. So, over about a month, I did what I could to make the album sound less noisy and trebly. The end result is far from perfect but, spending so much time with these songs, I've really come to appreciate them and the work we did. I do honestly feel that everybody did a great job with their performances and that Steve handled the impossible task that we presented him with like a champ. I can hear how hard of a time we all must have had with all the parts and transitions and speed changes in these songs, and I think it's really good. It's funny and serious at the same time and, while still having a bit of a grungy DIY sound, I think we actually achieved something. Who knows, maybe we could have been big. In any case, now, after 2 decades, I present to you... OGRE CHRIST.

TRACKLIST
1. Fiend's Path
2. Yellow & Black
3. Cropduster
4. The Room
5. Bare Knuckle
6. Jurassic Park
7. Tyrant
8. Hyperbaric Chamber of Death and Satan
9. Symphony of Blood
10. Jurassic Park 2
11. 40 Winks of the Eld' Mule
12. Cornelius

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