ORACLE | Instrumental Prog Metal (FFO Metallica, Keith Merrow, Ola Englund)

[BKM]

A while ago, I self-published my debut album, ORACLE. I don't think I ever shared it on here, so here's a link to one of the tracks, 'Exordium':

https://bjoernkmusic.bandcamp.com/track/exordium-2

Genre-wise, this is a modern, guitar-centric metal album, with particular focus on riffs and atmosphere rather than wild leads and crazy technique. Think of Metallica's instrumental songs but with a djent-y soundscape and a pinch of prog. I'm also heavily (ha! pun!) influenced by other metal musicians from the YouTube space, such as Keith Merrow (Merrow, Conquering Dystopia, Alluvial) or Ola Englund (Feared, The Haunted).
'Exordium' is the single of the album, and I think it's a good way to start into it. It's fairly straight forward, in-you-face metal. The album gets a bit more progressive than that on tracks like Of Guilt and Catharsis. If you feel drawn to acts like Meshuggah or Periphery / Haunted Shores, you might want to give these a go as well.

This whole project was a one-nerd-effort, from conception to final mixdown. Except for mastering, for which I was lucky enough to get Ermin Hamidovic from Systematic Productions (Architects, Periphery, Devin Townsend) on board.

Conceptually, the album tackles themes of insecurity and depression, but also of struggle and overcoming. The album as a whole looks at the process of working through a life-altering event, with all its ups and downs. The individual tracks dig into the different stages of this process, as well as the emotions attached to that. To give you an idea, 'Premonitions' is informed by the looming feeling of something not being right that you sometimes get way before you consciously notice any actual problems / changes, while 'Exordium' tries to capture the almost manic determination that sometimes grabs a hold of ya when you realize the inevitability of a big event that is heading your way.

But enough rambling, at the end of the day, I'd be much more interested to hear what YOU hear in the album. Of course, any and all feedback regarding songwriting, mixing etc. would be much appreciated - while this is my first foray into the scene, I'm not planning to leave it at that and there's so much to do and to improve

I hope you give Exordium---and maybe even the entire album---a spin. The link above leads to Bandcamp, but it's up on all major streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube) as well.

Cheers!