We always knew our style would keep evolving. You may have heard the saying that “Art is never finished, but merely abandoned”. Well, that is slightly less the case for Shards of Grey.
From the start, we wanted to make an EP, and then expand that body of work into a full length album/LP. But more than that, we also wanted to improve, remaster, or completely re-do the songs on the original EP, which we also did.
Once we had what we knew would be the full body of work for the album, we started to think about the music as an album. When it comes to our musical genre, we are still not sure we have one. As an example, look no further than the EP track “Summer to Fall” where the song is mostly folk influenced but then slides seamlessly into a dubstep-inspired breakdown.
One of the self imposed limitations that we put in place while making the EP was that any guitars present should be acoustic (a rule which we routinely broke, particularly on the track “The Greatest Act“). For the album, we have come to appreciate crunchy rock-influenced guitars as a mainstay instead. Other tracks on the EP had a very strong synth influence, like with Mysteria. We narrowed the album down to two genres for stylistic consistency: Rock, with a heavy synth element, and a kind of indie synth-pop, with a dash of guitars. As a result, every song on the EP has gone through significant changes for the album version, with several getting just full remasters, and others having been re-written from the ground up.
We also have gone back and forth on how we should use song structures on the album. You might have noticed that every song on the EP is notably longer than your average song— and the debate was to either shorten things or lean into longer structures. While there is certainly some balance to this, and we made sure no one section goes on too long (there’s one song that might even be shorter), overall we decided to go full prog and lean into longer songs. Did the album version of Summer To Fall need a second outro? Once you hear it, we think you’ll agree that it’s great addition to the song. However, the best example of this on the album is the closing track, that will clock in at over thirteen minutes. Don’t take this to mean that you’ll get bored with that one though— the song has three very different movements that segue seamlessly between each other as an intro, features two verses which are completely musically distinct from another, and three different styles for the choruses. The choice also means that the album simply contains… just a lot of fucking music— it will just barely fit on the typical 75 minute CD format.
Some of these songs have been waiting a very long time to be heard. One of these tracks is actually the first first song Shards of Grey ever wrote together. Additionally, you’ll finally get to hear the emotional conclusion of the story to Steven Grey’s “Darkest Year”— the end to which is hinted at in the album’s title: “Perseverance”.