oneclipleft - Permanent Solutions to Temporary Problems
4#metal #progmetal #homerecording #conceptalbum
The Optimist is my first LP in over 5 years, and it will release at whichever digital music store you prefer on New Year's Eve 2023. Recording began January 2022 and wrapped December 2023, making this the longest single project I've finished in this life. I spent the extra time learning how to mix and master properly, so hopefully that shows. Best listened to with good headphones.
This is my attempt at an instrumental prog-metal concept album, which for me means that much of it isn't metal and some of it isn't even prog. Many guitar parts are quad-tracked, and even some bass guitar parts are double-tracked. It's even got all the requisite octavers, phasers, flangers, echoes, strings, horns, piano, tempo/key changes, wonky time signatures, genre-bending, syncopation, style mish-mashery that will delight Meshuggah and Gojira fans alike. Then again, it's also got that old verse-chorus-verse, radio friendly, over-produced, hard rock you can have a beer with thing going on.
I probably could've worked on it another six months if I hadn't set a hard procrastination deadline of this year, and even then I tweaked stuff almost down to the last day. I had originally planned to release it back in August, but I wasn't happy with it yet. One of the joys of recording in your living room for free is the ability to delay release and change things as much as you want for as long as it takes.
-OCL
https://www.oneclipleft.com/