When Alek Darson was hired to mix and master a batch of demos, it seemed like the kind of straightforward job he regularly handles in his Port Colborne, Ontario studio. Instead, the guitarist and producer found himself pulled into Inner Child, the progressive project led by guitarist Carlos Borges and anchored by Animals As Leaders drummer Matt Garstka.
By the time the self-titled debut was finished, Darson had contributed lead and rhythm guitar, bass, keyboards and programming – while producing, engineering, mixing and mastering the album too.
Borges had initially presented himself as a client, but Darson recalls the job kept expanding: “We need bass for this part. We need guitars for this.” Soon he was adding solos, reshaping sections and suggesting arrangements. Most of the album was assembled remotely before the team spent four days tracking drums with Garstka at East Iris Studios in Nashville.
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Calling Inner Child progressive metal only gets you partway there. The music moves through odd meters, jazz-fusion phrasing, heavy riffing and quieter passages, while guitars, keyboards and orchestration shift underneath. Garstka’s drumming can be explosive and hyper-detailed, while string arrangements push the music well beyond a standard trio.
There’s virtuosity everywhere – but the record unfolds in layers rather than simply overwhelming the listener. That complexity makes Darson’s guitar choices more interesting. Much of Inner Child lives in clean and edge-of-breakup territory rather than constant high gain, which pushed him outside his comfort zone.
“A 5150, chugging along: that’s my happy place,” he admits. The cleaner approach gave him room to experiment, especially with economy-picking concepts from longtime influence Frank Gambale.
For the heavier material he leaned on his WoodGuerilla Ghost of Isabel, a multiscale eight-string with a 26.5-to-27.5-inch scale and Fishman Fluence pickups. He likes the glassy top end, while the extended scale gives the lowest strings an almost piano-like fundamental.
He uses an unusual E-A-D-A-D-G-B-E tuning that opens up less predictable low-register voicings. When he wanted something warmer, he reached for Puffy, his neck-through WoodGuerilla seven-string and longtime touring workhorse.
Darson’s amp world is equally modern. He’s largely moved to Fractal’s Axe-Fx platform after years of hauling traditional rigs, but he says searching for the right tones still feels like swapping amps, cabinets and microphones in a studio. Some DI tracks were also re-amped through Cubase’s stock VST amp simulator, particularly for clean sounds. Darson may miss the physical ritual of using real amps, but as he puts it: “They’ve nailed it in the box.”
He says his “producer brain” is always involved when choosing instrument tones as “half of the mix is within the arrangement.” If a guitar needs drastic EQ later, his instinct is to question the part, voicing or register first. Picking a sound and arranging a part are really the same process: making sure every layer earns its space.
There were moments when the Inner Child project was quite challenging. For Solace Darson wrote a sweeping, nearly chromatic unison with the synth that became one of the hardest guitar passages he’s ever tackled.
“I don’t think I’ve ever practiced anything that much in my entire life!” he says. “I can barely play it at tempo.”
I’m still a kid gazing at instruments, like, ‘It would be cool if I could play that!’
It’s a revealing admission from an accomplished progressive guitarist whose technical vocabulary can make difficult parts sound almost casual. His fretboard fluency was built over many years – he started aged 10 on his mother’s nylon-string in Belgrade, then heard Dream Theater’s Images and Words as a teenager and was floored by the unison passage in Metropolis Pt.1.
He later studied counterpoint, harmony, figured bass and solfege while touring, as the Eastern-influenced music around him provided an almost subconscious education in odd meters. Berklee had long been the dream; once financial help made it possible, he moved to Boston. Years after Dream Theater first inspired him, he found himself playing guitar and bass on Jordan Rudess’ 2019 solo album Wired for Madness.
The title Inner Child also became unexpectedly personal – as an only child who spent much of his youth looking inward, Darson connected with the idea. “I’m still the same kid in a sense,” he says. “Still gazing at these instruments, like, ‘It would be cool if I could play that!’”
Asked which track he’d suggest to introduce Inner Child, he settles on Guided Anger, while giving Wonder an honorable mention for its guitar and drum interplay. Both reveal the balance at the heart of the record: chops are welcome, but never simply for their own sake.
Whether he’s choosing an eight-string, dialing back the gain or wrestling with a brutal unison line, Darson keeps returning to the same question: what does the song need?
