Solo Leveling

Solo Leveling pulls together tracks I've written over the last couple years where strings and distortion feel like they're in genuine conflict rather than just layered on top of each other. The collection centers on that collision—violin and guzheng cutting against heavily distorted guitars, modal scales meeting power chords, orchestral swells that interrupt verse structures instead of decorating them. It's alternative metal at its core, but the string arrangements do more than add texture. They reshape the songs.

“"Now or Never" hits hardest with that urgency—the strings are almost frantic, racing against the rhythm section.”

I wanted this to feel like leveling through different sonic territories. "Now or Never" hits hardest with that urgency—the strings are almost frantic, racing against the rhythm section. "Greed" lets the orchestration breathe more, using space to underscore the track's material obsession. Then there's "Baked Beans," which strips everything back to distorted riffs and spoken word, a deliberate contradiction in a collection built on layering. "Japan Anime Opening" and "Rising Sun" both lean into modal progressions that feel less Western, more rooted in tuning systems that create tension without resolving the way metal usually does.

The production approach treats strings and guitars as equals in the mix, not background and foreground. That means tremolo bows sit next to fuzz pedals, pizzicato rhythms lock with kick drums, and when something breaks down it's usually both elements pulling away at once. The result is sharper and stranger than straightforward symphonic metal—these songs feel caught between genres instead of settled in one. Solo Leveling captures that specific moment when classical and metal stop being separate ideas and become a single, fractured instrument.