THE LOVEBITES EP

THE LOVEBITES EP is the band's debut mini-album, released by Victor Entertainment on 24 May 2017 as VICL-64792 at JPY 2,200 including tax. It was planned as a strictly limited run of 3,000 copies; pre-orders ran so far past that figure that a further pressing was made for those orders alone. Four songs, and no two of them the same shape: "Don't Bite The Dust", "The Apocalypse", "Scream For Me" and "Bravehearted". Three of the four are sung in English, which is not a marketing decision made later but the band's own aim written into its first record. Everything that would define them is already here — the high, held vocal line, the twin guitars built rather than layered, and a rhythm section that pushes on double kick. The crew shaped it as much as the songs. Steve Jacobs produced; Mikko Karmila mixed and Mika Jussila mastered, both at Finnvox Studios in Finland, the team behind Nightwish, Children of Bodom and Stratovarius. Every LOVEBITES studio record since has been mixed and mastered by the same two people, which makes these four songs the origin point of the band's sound rather than a rough first sketch. When the band came to write LOVEBITES EP II in 2024, they said they played this record back over and over.