Here is a mixing secret: There is no single piece of software sitting inside some legendary engineer's DAW that, the moment you install it, turns your home-recorded five-piece metal demo into a Meshuggah record.

Some music, you work on it and move on. Others stay with you. Surviving, the latest full-length album from Chinese technical deathcore band Horror of Pestilence (瘟疫之骇), is very much the second kind — and honestly, I'm extremely proud of how it came out. Watching Horror of Pestilence put something like this out into the world, and being part of it, means more than I can put into words.