1. Memory Lane (1:54)   MP3 2. Once in a Lifetime (4:51)   MP3 3. Revelations (3:46)   MP3 4. Fate (3:27)   MP3 5. Heaven (In Your Arms pt. 1) (5:24)   MP3 6. In Your Arms (Tonight) (6:34)   MP3 7. Lone Wolf (9:45)   MP3 8. Winner Take All (5:31)   MP3 9. The Traveler (6:18)   MP3 10. Time (5:56)   MP3 11. Starts Again Tomorrow (11:07)   MP3 Lyrics

The first full length album by Aspect is at long last complete.  "Revelations" is an album over a decade in the making and had finally made it through what turned out to be a much longer than expected recording process.

Most of the songs on the album were written in the mid nineties when I was still in Flashpoint.  "Lone Wolf" is the oldest song, written way back in 1994, while the newest song, "Starts Again Tomorrow" finally had its finishing touches added just last year, though the core of the song was written in 2000.  At the time of writing, many of the songs just didn't fit Flashpoint's sound and so I decided to set them aside.  After rediscovering these songs I knew I had to record them though.

Only a couple of the songs were designed to blend one in to the next when they were originally written, but most were not.  I noticed when looking at the songs how naturally they flowed even though they were never intended to (such as "Heaven" and "In Your Arms" which share a few lines of lyrics), and in many cases weren't even written for the same albums!  I've always been a fan of albums which play continuously and thought it would be a fun challenge to make this album do just that, even though there is no connecting theme between songs, musically or lyrically.

"Winner Take All" was initially written as two different songs, intended to appear at the start and finish of an album I was working on back in the nineties.  It was nice to be able to put both parts on this album.  The album closer was originally called "Destination Unknown" (which for a long time was going to be the album title as well), and was almost completely written.  When going over it one day I just felt it sounded too much like Stratovarius or Angra and didn't want to be labeled yet another Helloween sound-alike band so I scrapped most of the song except for a few parts:  the slow middle solo break, the happy ending with the tubular bells and the banjo part from "Memory Lane" coming back, and most of the lyrics which have since been turned into a totally new song for another album.  Many of the songs, such as "The Traveler" were grossly incomplete and had to have some lyrics and music written during the recording process (that solo is almost entirely improvised).

Tracking began in June of 2004.  I recorded four songs which became the demo.  For the next year or so I worked on pre-production on the remaining songs ("Starts Again Tomorrow" took a while to get all the parts written and arranged, for instance).  I resumed recording in August of 2005 and had finished all the parts in October.  As with the demo, I would record a full song at a time, making sure it was complete before moving on to the next one.  Also as before, I would listen back days later and decide to re-record everything.  Unfortunately, at this point my job increased my workload by approximately 10,000% and so virtually no work got done on the album until 2006 rolled around.

Mixdown began at the end of January and was finished the first week of February.  Mastering only took a couple of days and getting the mix of songs from one to the next was another day.  The album was fully recorded, mixed and mastered to CD on February 11, 2006.

I can't say enough how much I enjoyed making this album and how much I'm looking forward to the next one.  As I said, these songs represent ten years worth of work and I'm anxious to get onto some new material.  But that's not to say I'm not overjoyed with the final product.  And of course I need to thank all of you who pushed me to get it done and who subscribed to the Mailing List to keep updated on my snail's crawl of progress.  It's for you, I hope you like it.

- Dan Heerdt

Technical Details:
Recorded June, 2004 and August - October, 2005 at Bulldog Studios
Produced, Mixed, Engineered, and Mastered by Dan Heerdt
All songs written and arranged by Dan Heerdt
All songs © copyright 2004, 2005 Hurtman Music, all rights reserved.