Castle Wall

Music & Lyrics: Leo Kapfer

The story ended how it began
As endless tragedy
Like garbage thrown in a trash can
Lies and misery

She held on to her lifelong lies
Till her very last breath
Pretended love serverd as disguise
Reaped his boundless wrath

Without revelation
and without self-awareness,
her life remained a mis’rable first-class journey
around the world.

She buried her mind and heart in a stronghold beneath a castle wall.
Protected by her hard shell she shattered her heart and soul.

The tragic youth as a cheap excuse
Reeled off endlessly
Her mood swings were confused and abstruse
Accused relentlessly

Which bad mother can lose her faith.
Betray her only son
To lie and change her grandsons fate.
Too late, now she is gone

Without revelation
and without self-awareness,
her life remained a mis’rable first-class journey
around the world.

She buried her mind and heart in a stronghold beneath a castle wall
Protected by her hard shell she shattered her heart and soul

Castlewall - production blog

11.11.2022

My mother and I had a shattered relationship all our lives. I "dedicated" the song to her after her last lies were exposed when she died in 2019. The song Castlewall should express all the hate and anger and is my musical reckoning and at the same time our currently hardest song with very chalenging passages.
The intro and outro run through a polymetric groove consisting of 5/8, 4/4, 7/8, 5/8 & 7/8, while the verse alternates between a 7/8 and 4/4. Prechorus and Chorus are in 4/4.

The Sounds
All guitar sounds run through the Helix, using exclusively the Cali IV amp (Lead & Rhythm2), which emulates the MesaBoogie Mark4. The MesaBoogie 4x12 again serves as the Impulse Response.
To get the most caustic sound possible when soloing, I used 2 different distortion effects (Megaphone & Ampeg Scrambler) and a wah (Weeper).br />
The synths are mostly from Native Instruments, in this case Massive, Absynth and the Organ. Plus the OB-X Pro2 from SonicProjects, one of my favorite synths! In the power bridge towards the end of the song, a sound from the Seaboard Equator is used additionally. For the drums here we have chosen a set from the Superior Drummer Metal Foundry.

For the vocals, we needed several rehearsal runs to get the song-appropriate "bad attitude" across properly. Every now and then an effect from Toontrack's EZ-Mix helps us here.

Author: Leo Kapfer