That debut album titled Between Moments follows on the heels of a few single and split releases. It is completely instrumental and filled with aggressive and highly technical guitar shredding.

Produced, recorded and performed entirely by Arya Akbara — the man behind Methiums, the record serves up 10 tracks that should appeal to fans of progressive metal or the genre’s more technical aspects.

The album’s production is somewhat clinical, but in a way that does not feel awkward against the technicality of the music that leans heavily on precision and the expected layering of brightly distorted guitars, drums and programmed drums.

It is clearly not for everyone, and some of the songs are more successful than others in balancing melodic instrumental hooks with sheer complexity, but the record feels overall ambitious and filled with headphone-listening surprises.

It’s particularly applaudable seeing that Arya had limited time to work on the album as his job as a government employee at the tax office does not exactly provide much time for shredding.

Methiums came out of Arya’s former band, the thrash metal-focused Headcrusher. The band slowly dissipated after only managing to release a mere EP and playing only a handful of gigs after years together, with band members leaving to pursue different interests.

Methiums was formed out of that void. Arya began recording himself on his laptop with the help of various sound and production software.

Feeling confident about some of the results, he began sharing them online. He picked the made-up word Methiums after seeing that his chosen, more generic moniker of Mediums had already been used by another band, putting his own twist on the word and somewhat humorously combining it with the word “meth” (from methamphetamine) — “because I was really into [the popular drug-themed TV series] Breaking Bad”.

That TV is influential in Methiums music is no surprise. Arya admits to first getting the rock music bug after seeing a music video of the 1990s Surabaya rock band Jamrud on the small screen, as they performed a cover of Metallica’s massive 1991 hit “Enter Sandman”. Prior to that, Arya isn’t embarrassed to say, he was into popular pop hitmakers like Dewa and Peterpan.

“It wasn’t until senior high school that I got into ‘beautiful’ metal bands like Killswitch Engage, As I Lay Dying, All That Remains and Lamb of God,” he remembers, saying that those bands still influence him greatly.

It wasn’t until Arya began listening to guitar virtuosos such as Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, and Yngwie Malmsten that he began focusing more on the technical aspect of his guitar playing. “It’s hard to explain why I like those guitar players, except that it’s biting and just really addictive. But I know I’m not skilled enough to play at that level,” he says.

Arya began prowling YouTube for even more guitar players, landing on Mark Holcomb from the band Haunted Shores and Periphery, and Aaron Marshall from Intervals. He was hooked on the way these players managed to be technical without sounding too much like they were playing difficult parts just for the sake of it.

“They made it simple sounding but beautiful. It’s out of the box and complex, but the way they arrange it make their songs sound easy listening. They’ve really influenced my playing,” he says.

Arya says performing and recording everything by himself is not a case of being egotistical but a necessity. His job puts him mostly in the Pangkalan Bun area, away from Surabaya and practically anyone who could feasibly be a band mate.

“The negative is that there’s no one really to bounce ideas off although a solo thing like this makes it easier to stick to your ideals and ideas,” Arya says. “I do plan on eventually playing with actual people, because obviously playing gigs are much more fun when you’re doing it together.”

So far, Arya is teaching himself how to produce and program the software needed to make his songs sound like they are performed by an actual live band. It is not easy, he says, because he is more of a guitarist than a producer — “but I’m slowly learning and I’ve done a lot of new recording techniques on this record I’ve not done before, like mixing a song as it is being recorded, just going back and forth”.

While the album does not present any particular theme, Arya says that he wants the album to sound accessible even to those not accustomed to more technically inclined metal. He also plans on adding vocals in the future, moving away from being completely instrumental.

“I’ve actually made vocal lines for the songs on this album but didn’t end up doing it, but it would be really fun in the future for sure.”

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