Season of Mist vydají „Grand Declaration of War“ s překopaným zvukem. Za nový mix a master je zodpovědný Jaime Gomez Arellano z britského studia Orgone, kde nahrávali například Grave Miasma, Paradise Lost nebo Oranssi Pazuzu. Nový zvuk můžete posoudit zde a zvukařův komentář máte níže. K dispozici bude i nějaký teplý boxset s nahrávkami, na kterých se podílel Blasphemer (odkaz).

“It was a challenging remix to do, starting with the now obsolete format it was recorded in (ADAT). When we got the tapes, they were sent to a tape transfer specialist here in the UK and they were in a tape incubator for a couple of days to ensure the the tapes weren’t destroyed when played back on the ADAT deck (tape doesn’t age well if not stored correctly). Although the overall recording of “Grand Declaration Of War” was done to a very high standard, the main two things that bugged me was the drum sound and the overall crispiness / digital thin-sound of it (ADAT’s don’t sound very good IMO). The biggest challenge (you guessed it) was the drums. Hellhammer recorded on an early Roland Vdrum kit with real cymbals. Back then those clicky, super compressed drum sounds were cool, but I think most of us agree these days that it’s an unnatural sound and the samples themselves weren’t that good. I had to split each tom hit into a separate track, which was very time consuming. I literally had to go pretty much though every drum hit to make sure the new samples were triggering correctly and believe me, there are A LOT of drum hits on this album. My goal was to make it sound more like a real kit. After much work and refining, Hellhammer came to visit me at my studio for a few days where we went through every drum track to ensure it was accurate to his performance. The bass guitar pretty much didn’t exist on this album! After bringing it it forward and beefed it up, I was surprised to hear some very cool bass lines that I’ve never noticed before. The recorded guitar sounds were killer actually, they were just a little thin and crispy so I gave them more “body” and a bit more “warmth” without hindering Rune’s quantum precision. I was told by Rune that Maniac didn’t want any changes to his voice and I totally respect that. I painstakingly compared the original album vocal effects and levels to preserve it as close as I could. I ended up mastering the album to analogue tape to get a bit more warmth, depth and bottom end. I hope you all enjoy this new mix of this legendary album!”