We've been working on the album for 3 years. It's not like we work on it every single day, but we do think or talk about the album almost every day. That's not to say it's going to be amazing (I've lost all perspective) but it does mean that we've spent a good amount of time thinking about the music.
The act of recording is not the part of making an album that takes the most time. It’s also not generating musical ideas (those come relatively naturally). Arranging musical ideas into song-like structures takes a fair amount of effort—this is the second-most time consuming act of making an album. The real time bandit is lyrics. And by lyrics, I also mean ideas. What should a song be about? What are the stripped down words we will sing that will communicate the ideas? What is the melody that will work with the music and the lyrics?
Throughout the making of our album, it has been a struggle to find words that we want to sing. Lyrics often make one of us want to puke. I’m not saying our lyrics are exceptional, but they are at a point where we can tolerate them without wanting to run away.
We have two songs with freshly sung lyrics that now need to be mixed. In addition, we have three solid songs recorded with no lyrics or ideas for lyrics. Our goal: complete at least one more song. Let's see how long that takes ...