Wintersun - Battle Against Time - FULL COVER | Jack Streat

Transcription and backing tracks available as always!
Instagram:   / jack_streat  
Solo at 4:16 ;)
Contact:   / jack.streat  
Mixed and Mastered at   / etherealsoundstudio  

Another long wait! But worth it for sure. After years of struggling with some of these riffs, some advice from Teemu and a complete re-working of my right-hand technique, I finally turned this song from "impossible" to "enjoyable" - and the results have turned out better than I could have ever hoped for!

I'm delighted to announce that Alex from Ethereal Sound Studio took on the task of mixing and mastering this song, and he's done a phenomenal job, completely stomping on all of the amateur work I did in previous covers. Hats off to him indeed, and I really hope to work with him again in the future ^_^

Those of you who have been paying attention may in fact recognise him as the rhythm guitarist of Maelstrom Aeterna - the band I auditioned for a year or so ago! Their new album is fresh off the press and I encourage you all to go devour it - here's a link to their bandcamp: https://maelstromaeterna.bandcamp.com...

Anyway, back to my usual rambling: those of you who haven't experimented with downward pickslanting, I highly recommend it. As well as bringing this song into the realm of possibility, it also massively reduced the amount of tension in my pick grip, making my live playing far, far more comfortable and reliable to boot. In fact, improving live performance was the original goal of the technique switch - Battle Against Time was just a happy accident!

Of course with the main riff (and all its dozens of variations) out of the way, I still needed to learn the solo... and without the years of slow improvement I'd had with Winter Madness... so that turned out to be a tough little cookie to crack. I think I pulled it off though ;)

Cameron joins in once again to give a bit more low end power to some of the choir lines, and also to add that extra something to the visuals... I'll let the footage speak for itself. The man has theatrics in his blood, for sure.

Vocally this was a great opportunity to do some more work with distorted clean singing - there's quite a lot of it in the choirs, and occasional other places. Practise makes perfect!

I spent a fair amount of time working on guitar tone for this cover, and once again my Axe Fx II has done me proud with its Triaxis models. Jackson Soloist, Fender Squire Bass and SM58 for anyone wondering what the rest of the gear was. Sonatina Symphonic Orchestra and Korg microX for orchestrations. Perfect Drums for Drums.

Enjoy!

P.S. Alex did not pay me to say any of this, nor is he pointing a gun at my head or holding any of my family hostage. Seriously just go check his stuff out \m/