Road Work Ahead is Melocactus' fifth album!
Much like last time, the turnaround on the production of this album is a record for me, and there's even still a couple old (pre-Infinite Emptiness) songs that were completed for it.
The album originally started as a follow-up EP to Love is Built, with "Good and Better" being the starting point and setting the overall tone. It ended up accumulating enough songs for a full album. At just 9 main tracks, it feels a little shorter than some of my past albums, but the runtime is only actually smaller than Love is Built's.
My last two albums were both pretty optimistic, which is good, but this time I wanted to lyrically return to a slightly darker mood. Apprehension and cynicism are all over the place. In contrast, the production is my most sparkly and bright yet, I think.
For the transitions, I had several song scraps I didn't think were going to get finished, so they were repurposed as micropop-esque tracks breaking up the main songs. I expect to make something slightly different next, so this also served as a resetting of the songwriting table, possibly a send-off to this era of my music.
Vocally, this album stars Kasane Teto, and I am extremely pleased with her how her voice shines through in all the different ranges and moods she was asked to sing in.
Lyrics
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