A New Life (Resurrected Once Again).

Riding the high of our collective regained confidence in the live sets following the recording of EPII, Grave Lake once again faced another certain end. Due to circumstances that will remain untold, there was an internal conflict within the band that almost led to our end.

After a band meeting to address the issue, we decided to start writing again. The songs "Dark Dreams" and "Divers" came very quickly and the optimism of the band returned once more. Both songs quickly became part of our live set in early to mid 2018. "Pure Fear" took a little longer and was originally named as such by Justin because of the quick, complex nature of his drum parts. These songs brought an exciting new direction to the band and a feeling that we had finally found the sound we had been searching for.

A decision was made to expand the stripped sound of the band, and keyboards were officially incorporated into the sound. Back in 2014, Justin had acquired a Kurzweil K2000 from an old friend. This keyboard presented a whole new dimension of atmosphere and was the only keyboard used on the demos and actual record.

We booked time in June of 2018 with Pat Hills at Earth Tone and recorded a four song session that included "Dark Dreams", "Divers", "Pure Fear" and "High Drama". These songs were sent to Mark at MtStMtn in the hopes to release a single or potentially a third EP, but nothing came of this at the time.

"Surf Bort" was revisited shortly before this first session (it was technically a riff that we had kicking around since the later part of the EPII era).

Andrew spent most of the summer of 2018 in Ireland and although Justin and I regularly met at our practice space during this time to write, the only riff we came up with during Andrew's absence was the basis of what became "Bort Squirt".

Once Andrew returned "Bort Squirt" was jammed and turned into a proper song. We also wrote "Wiper Man" during this time. I have always had a deep love/fascination with the song "No Fair" by The Wipers and in lieu of covering that song, we decided to write a song in the same vein.

Grave Lake continued to preform a number of live dates and the new songs started to be incorporated into the set with increasing frequency.

Around this time we realized we were approaching writing our first proper full length album and abandoned the idea of a third EP. We decided a couple more songs would do the trick. "Jason Bort" was written and we decided to re-record the song "Hex" from EPII to finish the album. "Hex" was a song that we had always felt that we did not capture correctly during the sessions for EPII. We had recently rediscovered the groove of that song in our live sets and decided it would fit with the vibe of the new record.

Another session was booked for January of 2019 with Pat Hills. "Mattress Man" was written at the last minute before this session, and we decided that this song would be better suited for the album than "Hex".

The remaining five songs were recorded and the album was complete (or so we thought). This session was lost and is represented here for the first time. The only evidence of this "lost session" is a "board mix" of a playback of the tracking of the final day of the session and is included here for sake of comparison to what was officially released. We took this brief setback as an opportunity to tighten up some of the arrangements and in February of 2019 we went back into Earth Tone to finish the album once more.

Both the "lost session" and the officially released version include the re-introduction of Stephine on keyboards. Stephine had not played with the band since the Darlingchemicalia days, but was brought back in to provide her distinctive style of keyboards.

A close listen to some of these demos will reveal alternate lyrics in a lot of the songs, as well as some slight changes in the vocal delivery/inflections.

"Pure Fear" as an album was intended to once again provide the final statement of the band. Although a full promotional cycle was planned for the album, Andrew was once again going to be leaving Sacramento to go to school...

Ian (September 2022)