Date: 01/03/06 - Final entry, where everyone expresses their final thoughts on "Core".

Two years, three songs, hundreds of hours working, lots of happiness, sadness and some bad moments. This is what means a project that takes so much to become a reality. I remember all moments; Like the moment of creating the idea, the storyboard guidelines, the composition and structure of the themes, the recording... and I think that all of them have made me learn things with no exception. We don't actually like to stay in a same idea for a long time, but in this case we had to prepare a long project that we had to love enough to keep it alive all the time until the end. A great challenge!! I even remember some moments in which we were not sure of been able to finish it. We started recording some cool ideas to be developed in the future or to be ruled out. I think we had music enough to record 120 minutes, being these original and not similar to anything we had ever heard. I think we did it to a greater or lesser extend and after that, we worked on those ideas. Each riff, chord progression or rhythm we wrote, was treated to become something bigger, longer or something with a different sonority. Lastly, with some cool music we started doing the structure of each theme. 20 minutes each!!! This wouldn't be done in two days!! The thing is that we haven't been forced to extend the music, and actually we were frightened under the idea of not having enough space in an standard CD to fit all the music in.

And the day arrived. Aleix started recording drums for the first song. Seed was not finished by that time and I was afraid that we were not giving enough importance to the last song. I didn't want to have two jewels and a stone to be polished up. But in the studio we can work in stillness and I got relaxed of that idea. Nowadays no band can stay five months in the studio if they have to pay every day, it is very expensive. We are a lucky band though. During this process all went pretty fast. We didn't want to stop recording, but we had to finish all the rest, this means, not only the structure, but also arrangements, solos and vocals...

Quite all the rest I have to say is well known by you thanks to this blog. Aleix has been working extremely hard to make the album sound the best he could. We had no need to go to Germany or Sweden to get a great sound as other bands do. I think this album sounds better than lots of other. This one sounds fucking well!!!! We have to thank Aleix because as a producer he's a real professional.

I won't stop here. I've been writing music with Carlos since we were children. He's the best musician I've ever met. There are some parts in the album that he only loved when we had added three notes!! (This is not an example... it is the real life!!) He's a demanding person and he knows exactly what he wants to hear. He found strength for all of us when we needed it. No doubt on this... he is a milestone in Persefone.

Jordi offered us a music vision. With this we got hard and cruel sonorities in the music. His riffs helped us to get all what we needed in the hard parts of the album. About Toni: Humility, something great in a musician. We both met to check that the bass lines fitted perfectly with the rest of the music and sometimes he said: "I don't know if this will be cool enough", and I only could recognize how fantastic the idea was. And finally Marc... he was a surprise!! I won't say anything else about him; I'll just wait for you to hear when he starts singing in the album. Only then you'll know why he has been a big surprise. I just didn't expect that brutality.

Finally, two years later I'm listening to the album and I am completely happy with the result. I don't know if you'll love it, but I think it is 100% Persefone. Thank you all for reading this blog. See you on stage!!!

Miguel Espinosa

For me, having been part of all this has been an incredible experience, both in a musical level and in a personal level. Musically, being able to write the bass lines it's been a job that has filled me extremely of diverse sensations. Music has helped me discover a world full of sounds and sensations and I've discovered that thanks to their help and great patience in all aspects, emotional and fraternal. Aspects that I've discovered that in this album have no limit. Being able to record it it's also been a brutal experience. If it had not been for that support and comprehension from the entire band member and their extreme patience it would not have been possible. To sum up, to me, all this meant and I've felt that in some aspects, our ties have tightened up a bit more. Thanks all for this dream come true.

Toni Mestre

Summing up what the composition and the recording of this album has meant to me in some lines is simply something not possible to be done.

Since I first heard the melody that would become the main melody of the album three years have gone by, and in these three years I have collected all kinds of memories, conversations of all kind and dozens of moments that were truly important to be today writing these lines while listening to "Core".

Some days ago, I had this conversation with Aleix where he was telling me how much we had "grown" during this long time that it has taken us to finish Persefone's second album. In my case I could talk about musical growth for all what the other members in the band have given me in my way of seeing music, I could also talk about personal growth for all the situations I've had to face during this period of my life and also for trying to be at the level that this project required since we started it.

From the writing sessions I remember nights and nights with Moe giving his best in front of the keyboard, evenings with Aleix, searching for coherence and structure to all those riffs and ideas. Hours with Jordi to get those two guitars work together as best as possible. I remember conversations with Toni about bass lines and tests with Marc to give the written lyrics the strength for the music.

From the recording sessions all I can say is that in this occasion I've had the luck to be present and be able to help, as much as possible, from the first moment. Remembering this recording days, it comes to my mind the effort this process meant to the whole band, the feeling that it would never end and all those moments, good and bad, have made it possible for today to have the album finished. On the other side, having seen so closely Aleix's work during the production of this album, I feel I have the obligation to recognize here and particularly the great work, effort, patience and professionalism invested... it's been hard as hell, but now that is all finished, everything looks different, isn't it pal?

I don't have much more to add, thanks to all you pals for this incredible trip, thanks also to Marta for her fantastic job on the album... mmm... and also I'd finally add that I'd have turn up those guitars a bit more... just kidding :) I wish that you really enjoyed the album as much as I've enjoyed it seeing it become a reality. Thanks for reading and now, let's play some live shows!!! :-) METAL!

Carlos Lozano

Well, first I'd like to say that I'm really proud of this work, it's been long due to the fact that we were only able to work on weekends, but well, in the end, long but not hard. We've had good days and others not so good but the most important thing is that in the end we've managed to do what we had intended, and even better to what I had ever thought it would result. So right now, the only thing left is to thank the band for letting me be a part of this great project that finally is done. Let's see what the rest of the world thinks.

Marc Martins

If I had to sum up all the experiences lived during the recording of Core, I guess I'd say only one word: learn. Like in all things in live, there are positive and negative moments, but I think that the negative ones give us the chance to learn from them.

There have been some real great moments that I've enjoyed a lot, but there has also been lots of tension and fatigue. There have been sessions where we really ended exhausted. Maybe the reason for those is the inexperience and the need to plan things a bit better.

The recording of this album has been long in all terms: time used, written music, lyrics. These have been really two years of intense work but at the same time, really productive.

This is the first time I've had the chance to be part of something so big, and I'm really proud of it.

Lastly, I'd like to congratulate and thank the entire band for their support and friendship, and especially Aleix and Carlos for the patience and dedication during the recording of the album.

Jordi Gorgues

Well, this is it, the last entry. I've got goose bumps all over me. The album is done, it has been sent to be mastered and as I said yesterday all we have to do now is wait. Not really much to be done. I've read the other guys' entries to this final diary's entry to see how and what I would write in mine. The main idea was to do a bit of inside searching to find out how we've grown and what the album has meant to us during the whole process of writing and recording it.

I've read some interesting stuff about growth, learning, good and bad moments and how, in the end, we are all really proud of the job done. Let me go back in time to the days when the band gathered to start discussing how the second album was going to be.

We had decided something that somehow seemed obvious to be done. The album was going to talk about Persephone's mythological history. Somehow we owned that to her, after using her name. By that time I was really into metal and progressive operas and the idea came as a shoot, we had to do a conceptual history with only three songs, one for every main character in the story. So we had it set. Three songs. Doubts soon arrived... of course, how is this done and above all how are we going to promote a 70-minute album that only has three songs, would people be able to swallow that? Well, after some discussion about it we decided to give it a try. Somehow we knew that working on such long songs was not going to be a great deal because whatever we do it always reaches 10 minutes, that somehow, we have to cut to fit into 5 to 7 minutes... so we thought, let's not cut shit and let's see what comes out from all this. You are soon going to find out. That was two years ago.

So we started meeting, mainly Carlos, Moe and I at the rehearsing room we have to start making music. All riffs had to be original and yet we had to keep some sort structure in the songs. As things are I'm more like the kind that wants to be structured and repeat riffs in a more "traditional" way, yet keeping that progressive touch, while Carlos is all about changing riffs every 4 bars. As you can imagine that lead to some serious discussions about what and where and how had to be played. In the end, those discussions resulted in what the album is now. Some tension, but nothing that could not be resolved in front of a good beer.

In those days we were still promoting "Truth inside the shades" and we were still doing some live shows here and there. I remember having to stop working on the new album because of these concerts... damn those were hard days.   Somehow the new album was not evolving as fast as we were expecting. We decided to stop playing live and really concentrate on the album. That we did for like a year. Imagine how hard it is to tell everyone that the album is getting done but somehow, after months and months, faith can disappear if you can not show them anything. Imagine if things went far, that in all that time, we managed to end one song and a half... uff... time was really after us, and day after day, as I've said, we were less sure that the project was going to be ended as expected in the beginning. So this is what we did... we thought that we had to show the world what we had done so far to see how they reacted. We set up a live event and played Sanctuary. After that, hopes were really high again. Everyone had enjoyed Sanctuary a lot.

Then, all the sudden things really speed up. Why's that? Well, we were sure that we would not be ready to record unless all songs had been written completely and played live with all the band to be sure all what we had to do... As things were going that was going to take another year, and no one was ready to accept that, but then again, drums could not be recorded since there was no music at all for Seed, for example, and drums had to be recorded in Barcelona because we had no other way of doing it... tough times. There were also lyrics only for the first song and believe me, they were quite different from what they are now. So I took a bow and modified Orion Studios to set a drum kit and record from there. That was it. It meant the start of the recording of Core. As the album was being written I was able to record all the stuff that was already done and approved. We did it that way, and somehow the rest of the guys saw that the album was really advancing and everyone started working twice as hard.

Since now drums had not to be completely recorded for the rest to be done, Toni started recording bass. We were all really happy to be recording the album, and also a bit anxious, as Moe has commented, because somehow the last song was not been worked as the others, but we had no time to waste so we decided to continue working that way. As the guys have said the rest of the story is already on this diary, that for me has become as something far more important that what I thought it would be in the beginning.

Week after week I've written all about the album, all achivements and all disappointments... everything is here. Somehow, as it always happens I only remember the good moments and this diary is here to make me believe everything, not only the good moments, but the truth. I once read in a CD sleeve about the producer being also a member in the band that said: "never again". If you'd ask me, I would have said the same lots of times during this recording. Never again! It's a hard thing to say, and in the end we all do it again... because we love it so much we can avoid it.

When I look back and re-read those entries I can't but smile and think how much we've suffered to be proud of this new album you'll soon be able to hear.

Above all, and after nights and night without sleeping thinking how to deal with aspects on the recording, I have to thank Carlos for being my voice to the rest of the band. He did what I'm not able to do... say things that are wrong in a diplomatic way. He is the one that managed to keep us all together to let the project arrive to a safe end. If it wasn't for all he did, Core would not sound the same and I would certainly not be a part of it... Thanks again pal.

Finally today we've managed to send a copy of the album to our manager in Denmark. He has listened to the album and has liked it a lot. Some small things have to be polished, but in the end I think we'll have a great product. This album has been done by Persefone for Persefone, but above all I feel that this as my album and I've said this many times to the rest of the band. I don't mean this in a sense that I've done it all, far from the truth. But I think about it as my child, an album where I've done whatever I wanted to hear and do. It has all the ingredients from all the albums I mainly love. A progressive conceptual story full of Hammonds, Minimoogs and odd time signatures. I've also had the chance of producing it, and mixing it... so this album is me. I really hope you enjoy it. But to keep this statement from misunderstandings, let it be known that all the other members gave 200% of their time and effort to also be able to say the same I say. I'm sure this is everyone's child in Persefone and we are really proud.

What will happen now? We don't know. Will you like it? We don't know. Will it be heard all over the world? Will the reviews be good? Will we be able to tour to show it to you first hand? We hope so. But only you have the answers to all these questions... hope to see you again soon, hopefully not in another 2 years, but before.

Finally I close "Core's Diary" with this entry that sums up all this album has meant for us. Explained by all of us. Thanks for reading throughout these 7 months. We all really felt someone was hearing and following it.

Once more, see ya, be cool, take care and keep the metal flowing!

Aleix Dorca

P.S Here's the unforgettable celebration dinner band picture...