The time is nearly upon us...

Record Time IX. This will be my fourth Record Time entry, and I must say, I'm thoroughly stoked out. I aimed really high on my first attempt and partly succeeded, considering how little I knew of the recording process (concept album about Japanese sea mythology). My second attempt was aimed quite high as well, and my increased knowledge of the "studio" helped, but due to the nature of the music almost NEEDING good production to achieve what I wanted, I consider it to be mostly a failure (concept album about the dangers of a technological future). The third attempt had much better production, my best yet, but the music itself was very flat, repetitive, and bland (semi-concept album about... unhealthy food, drugs, and trains?).

So this brings me to my fourth attempt, Record Time IX, and I'm not holding anything back for this one. All of the heavy riffs and loud drums will still be here, in even larger amounts, but there will also be a significant increase in melody on this album. Melody is where I'm most lacking as a songwriter, so this should be an interesting outing. I want this to be as progressive as possible, so I plan on making this album do quite a bit of genre hopping (by that, I mean as much as I possibly can). This will be the first inclusion of unharsh, sung vocals in Record Time for me. It seems weird that I'm just now getting to it on the fourth go-around, but what can I say? I suck at singing. You'll just have to put up with it, sorry. Also, I'm bringing back the scream vocals, and I promise they'll be less dodgy this time around. I'm going back to the concept album, as trite as it may be, and I have my story all figured out. It's about a guy who ends up in a coma, where he travels inwardly to discover his role in and perception of existence at large. In case you can't tell, I'm aiming really high with this one.

My first "legitimate" heavy recording (RT7) tried (horribly) to imitate a djenty, Meshuggah type of sound. The next had more of a Black Sabbath/Turbonegro/The Sword kind of feel to it. On this album, I'm shooting for my heavy sound to be a bit more raw and aggressive, achieving higher speeds while also utilizing slower tempos, ala Sleep or Electric Wizard. While there will be plenty of downtuned chugging, plan to hear some plodding drums and flat-out nasty distortion (in a "this is peeling paint off the walls, hell yes" kind of way).

One last note. I have new drum software, so some songs might just end up sounding like a Danny Carey solo set to music. Cool!

Let's hear your ponderings, people! The blog is the most excusable form of self-indulgence, so get to it!