My design of Rain Delay's new album cover. I had a lot of fun finding a way to incorporate details that have a lot of meaning for the band while keeping the image relatively simple.
I also directed and wrote lyrics for one of the songs on the album, so if you want to hear that, check out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4m.....=WebMetropolis
I'm on the drums if you want to pay attention to my musical work.

Now for those who are more interested in my work for this band, here's how I wrote My song on the album:

When I was given the task to oversee and direct the writing of this song with Andrejević Predrag, one of few in Rain Delay's discography that wasn't written by Dušan Pešić, I knew two things: I can do it, and it's not going to be easy.
Rain Delay has a lot of diversity when it comes to genres and song structures, so another "Different" song was appropriate, but it still needed to fit.
A solution was found in borrowing directly from previous songs in subtle referential ways and a general approach in songwriting that I picked up from Dušan. Over the years I've managed to learn how Dušan takes personal experiences and turns them into songs directly or through fictional characters and settings that parallel the real ones.
This is our 4th "Recon" song, previous 3 albums all had a song with "Recon" in the title so I mainly looked at those three for elements to reference and I had a clear choice of personal experiences to draw from to help me with the lyrics and song structure ideas.
The goal was to create a song structure that can be musically interpreted in many different ways, based on who is coming up with guitar riffs for the drum parts, but that objectively, every single element of the song is present for a reason and arranged in a particular order for a reason.
Here's the analysis of each part of the song and I hope that more insight into it will make you appreciate it just a little bit more.
In the diverse Rain Delay repertoire, the idea was to make this be our most "symphonic Metal" song.
Several important things are going on in the intro. We are referencing the intro to the song "Veneto Slumber Recon", the first of the Recon songs. The guitar hits just a few of the same notes and instead of the clock ticking we hear the sound of LEGO bricks. LEGO is something very important to me, and this small detail tells you that this is "Toni's" song.
The following section is a setup for what will come later. This is where I wanted to come up with a drum beat that was new to me, and make it so that it can later be broken up. But we'll get to that.
The blast beat section is a reference to the ending of the song "Kyoto Daylight Recon". Just like there, it's a "fast-forward through time" section, but here we also have vocals telling the story of my life in the years from 2012 to 2016, the years of growth where countless fears turned into long surpassed obstacles.
Mladja Nikolic plays the role of Me in the song and I thank him for giving me a voice!
The following verses slow down to a steady tempo, the 4 steady years from 2016 to 2020.
A subtle reference to "Dorćol Late Recon" can be found in how I play verses 3 and 4 with similar tom and crash cymbal combinations. It's a small thing, but important!
The following guitar solo is there for the sake of music alone but if my life ends up being as epic as that solo, hahaha, that's all I ever wanted. And actually, chronologically following the verses, the guitar solo parallels the good times I've had this year. Simply appropriate. A brilliant work of Andrejević Predrag!
The song abruptly stops here. This pause was always planned but we could never nail down what it's supposed to sound like until in a true moment of creative cohesion, Dušan and I came up with a solution. The audio news clips once again reference the song "Veneto Slumber Recon" that has a "radio broadcast" moment, but also these reporters talk about the event that the end of the song was written about.
And from there we enter a broken version of the first drum beat in the song, a literal breakdown, with Dušan introducing himself as a character in this story. And when the beat finally goes back to what it was in the beginning, the lyrics, forming an odd chorus, are a dialog between Dušan and I, discussing what will happen if I leave the country or decide to stay, and me replying that no matter what, I'll still be there, maybe an ocean away, but a member of this band and a part of what we create as long as I am welcome to be all that.
And finally the ending of the song is what it was all about, the "Recon", reconnaissance, a short trip to Canada in 2018, the trip that made me sure, more than ever, that Canada is where I belong. And while I was there, a Tornado hit Ottawa (foreshadowed by the news clips about it earlier in the song), leaving the city in darkness after destroying the power grid. The night was magically calm after that, as I wandered around the neighborhood in complete darkness under the clear moonlit sky. And referenced in the lyrics is what happened after my return from Canada, a realization that I'll never get there together with the girl I loved, that I'll have to be alone if and when I permanently find a home on those distant shores.
Endless thanks to Wanda for being my voice in this part.
And so that's about it, I wanted to go into even more detail but this is quite enough for now.
I hope you all like the song...
I hope I'll get there...