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Cirith Ungol > Paradise Lost > Reviews > robertgarven
Cirith Ungol - Paradise Lost

This is the Straw that Broke the Camels Back and w - 50%

robertgarven, December 26th, 2010

I was one the founding members and drummer of Cirith Ungol. This was our last album. We were treated so poorly by the record company that it broke the band up after 22 years. We had little or no artistic control over the production of this album, and even though we paid a big time lawyer $$$ to review the contract, we unknowingly sold the rights to album forever. When all our other CDs were re-released by Metal Blade of Germany, Restless the company that owned the rights to Paradise Lost, refused to let this cd be re-released. We were not even contacted by the current company releasing it, and will not receive any royalties from its sale. I even tried to contact them and received no reply.

The reason the production sounds like crap is I played drums first and ALONE to a click track and no members of the band were allowed in by the producer to hear the other members record their tracks. This was in complete contrast to all our other albums where we did a powerful bass, guitar and drum track then added the vocals, solos etc later. The original demos were erased so the ones on Chaos rising even though recorded more inteliggently were on a Teac 4 track. To bad the ones with Flint & Jimmy did not survive. I cant make any excuses for this album but Jimmy was a hell of a guitarist and if we would have even the basic control over the production and if of course Flint & Jerry would have stayed things would have been much different. The original plan was Jerry and Jimmy to play double leads but Jerry left as he felt like he was being pushed aside, which was far from the truth. We desperately tried to get him to come back to no avail. He was also struggling with some personal problems at the time which did not help.

To add insult to injury our singer Tim Baker went to a local store and had to buy a copy of the CD. I urge you not to buy this CD and instead look for our other remastered CD's "Frost & FIre" & "King of the Dead" & "Servants of Chaos" these are still in print in Europe (only!) and they were the only projects that we had artistic control over. This is now owned by Time Warner which is ironic....

I was so upset by this project and its production and aftermath I swore "That I would never touch another drumstick or play drums, if it meant being in the same business as these people". Even though we have been offered many reunion tours and dates I have kept my oath, and expect that I will keep it until death...

Playing drums and Cirith Ungol was my life and passion and it is sad that such a great band with such untapped talent and potential had such little support while other bands with so little talent became huge commercial successes.

For those that want to compare us to other bands they dont know half the truth. We were together about 9 years before our first album came out so those that want to compare us with other bands that were formed after we had been playing for years are misguided. We also had to finance our first two albums which took years to save up record and pay for. One of the reasons "Paradise Lost" was such a disaster is that we waited approximately 3 years to record it waiting for the record company to get their act together. That is one of the main reasons why Flint & Jerry left. Then we had to endure the record company being sold etc which delayed the album even longer, making a bad situation even worse. I cried when I heard the final version.....

Sincerely,

Robert Garven
Ventura, CA