“Dry Bone Valley“: The main riff on that was something that Troy had from years ago. He taped it on this little Dictaphone that he had been traveling around Europe with during the “Blood Mountain” tours. I think we were in Italy somewhere and Bill & Brent set up amps backstage. I think it was the same day that the riff for the song, “Crack the Skye” was written. Troy came in and was like, “Does anybody remember this riff? Nobody did soBrent relearned it. It was pretty simple. We threw in some other interesting ideas with it. And there you go, “Dry Bone Valley.”

“The Thickening“: Another one of my favorites on the record. It’s about being a baby in a crib. There’s lots of childish stuff going on in this record. Probably one of my favorite musical moments – the whole first section of it is has lots of really beautiful guitar work. And it just moves in all these places that make it work perfectly and sounds amazing. I is a really bizarre song but super catchy and it works really well. I don’t even understand what that song is but it’s almost two completely different things at once and I love it.

“The Creature Lives“: Yet another really bizarre song. Doesn’t even really sound like us but it is us. I came up with this melody on a keyboard at my house. I just came up with this simple little melody. I’d emailed it to the guys and Troy took particular interest in it and kept like pushing me. He said “hey, man, we have to write that song – we have to finish that.” A couple of weeks went by and has written a bass part. He said “I’ve got it, let’s do that.” I was wondering what is was going to turn into – and how we’ve got to figure out what to do with that. I think I was driving somewhere and I could just envision it and imagine people singing along. I’d felt as that I had something to built on. One day in the studio it was just Troy and I and when it’s just a bass player and the drummer, we thought, what the fuck are we going to do?” Troy suggested that we should work on that thing we’d been working on. We ended up working up a demo version of it and for the most part it sounds exactly like what we’d imagined it. It hasn’t really changed at all except for the added guitar parts. We can’t wait to play it live. Probably one of my favorite songs on the whole record and I’m really happy that Troy pushed for it to be completed because I was not like not sure that I’d finish it. I didn’t really know if anyone would like it because it’s not a typical Mastodon song but I think it works.

“Spectrelight“: This will rip your face off. It’s a mover and a shaker – an awesome song. Scott Kellyfrom Neurosis recorded the vocals for the whole metal section. It’s a kick ass face melter. I can’t wait to play that one live, it’s going to be sick. I really can’t wait to play it live in Scott’s home town so he can come out and sing it with us, you know. We always look forward to that. Eventually, we’ll have enough songs featuring Scott Kellyso that he can just join our band.

“Bedazzled Fingernails“: Another really weird song with some riff time signature stuff going on in it. There are these crazy robot vocals on it which make it sound like some kind of science fiction to me. To me, it sounds like if some Cylons decided to start a band, which they probably had a band. They just didn’t show it because they probably weren’t very good. But if they had a band and they were going to write some songs, I think that they would write, “Bedazzled Fingernails.” It sounds like their style of music that they would like to listen to or play.

“The Sparrow“: This was a last minute addition to the record. We went into the studio with X amount of songs and then a couple unfinished stragglers. We hadn’t ever played them together or rehearsed them at all. I might’ve run through it once with Brent but that was it. It was the last day in the studio and we were looking for anything else that we can do drum tracks for. Brent said, “Yeah, let’s try doing that one thing and see what it turns into.” We constructed the bridge for it and it really came together. It’s another one of my favorites. I’m really happy that Brent remembered that song that he had in his back pocket. Really just this one riff and that grew into what it is now and something that we’ve never done before.

“The Ruiner“: That was written during the “Crack the Skye” sessions as well. That one and “Deathbound” were the two from those sessions that were the furthest developed songs that didn’t get used for “Crack the Skye” because they were just too heavy and too fast and crazy. “Crack the Skye” had taken on this whole other vibe so “Deathbound” got trapped in the studio. “The Ruiner” did not so we tracked it for this record. It’s a fast, crazy song. I wrote it on my Dictaphone just kind of humming the riffs. Bill’s got a riff in there as well. It’s just a classic, kind of heavy Mastodon song.