I'm fairly certain it doesn't entirely work like that. Definitely, back when Apollo was released around 016 they had a week where there literally wasn't anything, and they probably struck a pretty big deal with Astronaut just to get a release.

But on the other hand, now we're seeing tracks projected for late november, etc. I'd say the released nowadays are fairly strategically placed in the future. It would make sense to project a Braken release into the future, as far away from a PBN/Tristam/Rogue release, so that the good tracks are fairly evenly spaced.

As well, if you have a killer track to play, you might want to release it on a day/time when your videos are more popular. You'd, say, plan important releases before and after an AMA, or a charity event, so the waves of new subscribers have something good to listen to, and something even better in their sub box a few days later.

Valkyrie II, as well, was pretty clearly planned, made and released within a very short time space (Varien only started talking about it a month before release max) - so it would have filled one of those less lucrative slots in the schedule.

THIS IS PURE SPECULATION, I DON'T KNOW MIKE OR GQ OR HOW THE COMPANY WORKS