MORBIUS' first experience in a real studio took place in March of 1992 at Inner Ear Studios in Arlington, VA under the guidance of Producer King Fowley and engineer Don Zientra. The Shades Below was recorded on a reel-to-reel system and manually edited (with a razor blade) and was produced and mixed in only two days. A combination of the top songs from the band's 1990 Realm Demo and new tracks, The Shades Below was where MORBIUS developed their sound--morbid, drugged-out, gloomy, and memorable. Tracks such as Tapping The Vein and Mortal Realms were updated, smoother versions of their Realm Demo counterparts, while new songs such as Remains of Jahveh and The Frost showed an evolution in the musical direction of the band to a more complex, melodic structure. The song Underground Civilization was named by King during the recording process, and a bonus track, Encoffination was released by his label With Your Teeth Records on the first Midnight Offerings compilation CD. Paul Folk's label Last World released the CD in 1994, and the album was re-released by Lost Apparitions Records in 2014, including four bonus tracks: Sethanian Darkness and Scream To No Avail, two songs from the band's Realm Demo, Ghosts, an early demo track that King Fowley recorded at the Sylvester brothers' house in 1993, and a cover of RUSH's Witch Hunt, recorded live at the legendary Club Asylum in Washington DC.
