The song takes its name from an unincorporated town in Texas.

CITY of SIRENS
This is the city that won't go to bed. It greets its morning w/ a red eye, a creeping, bleary kind of mean & a handshake like the men they're fishing out of the rivers again & again. Alarms clocks litter the streets, faces bleached a sickly white. Empty, staring, tossed aside & left to rot underneath the ceaseless crackle of fluorescent light, copper wire & stifling heat. The chatter from the mouths in this town is enough to cut you down, chew you up & spit you out; a reputation, a tarnished crown. Can we hush the klaxon wail of conversation on the knife's edge of a place that hasn't slept? Kept awake by a foul mix of self loathing & caffeine binge it tries to caress but only rends. A taint, a scrape, a crash, a stain. A city founded on the sound of steel on concrete.

You need to find one patch of green. A place to rest your head & sleep clean & guilt free. Clean & guilt free.

Here we tried to use a traditional approach to achieve unusual results. While writing the initial guitar line it was decided that instead of our regular "play it by ear/modulation hell" method we'd actually put everything in a single key, in this case F# minor. The idea being such strictures forces one down new creative avenues (@ least, if you're searching for them from the beginning). While we've being doing this in regards to other areas of our sound since the outset, this marks the first time we've applied that concept to songwriting. It's also funny that it's taken us this long to adopt as basic a concept as key signatures & even then use it as more of a process, as opposed to something more innate. Stylistically we wanted to be as impressionistic as the lyrics, trying to impart a feeling of menace (& in the verses a sense of claustrophobia & outside pressure), broken up by more expansive (& lighter) piano/guitar breaks. The wah pedal given to Leon made its way into his pedal chain during the writing, & its use here was pure Swervedriver, all slow filter sweeps & harsh tones. Wah is one of those effects that when used sparingly or in the proper context can be great, but too much is well... we're sure we've all heard bad wah before. This was also to be the first song, prior to Leslie's exit, where Leon handled the majority of the vocals.

ENDYMION SPRING
Two, two, two; I remember snowball fights in empty streets. Who are you now, so cold? The air in your wake bites like a thousand tiny teeth, to slip inside my clothes just like a thief & steal whatever heat's left in me. Summer, how can we feel the warmth you bring when all they're handing out now are steel gray skies & cutting winds? So brief, then it leaves me.

The addition of the powered sub to our PA setup allowed our electronics to hit w/ the same force as a live kit, & this song was the first to be written w/ an entirely programmed rhythm track. That being said, looking back none of us could seem to remember how we did it, an instance where the easy flow of ideas & the lens of years combine to obscure the view of the creative process. The melodies, on the other hand, apart from the more uptempo guitar lines, had a more protracted birth. The middle in particular was laborious; what is now a bass range synth melody started life as a guitar line, while some of the other parts are arranged so lopsidedly that it took us forever to both suss it out & get it right. Melodically, the transition from that middle section into the brief guitar assault was initially very jarring, & we had to find a natural sounding way to modulate everything up a half step. Thankfully the gentle ending practically wrote itself.

The song gets its name from a novel Anne was finding inspiration in while we were writing.

FRESH KILLS
We've grown so close, like predator & prey. I wonder, will I lay in your jaws today? It's hot breath on my neck that has me frantic & I know I shouldn't panic, but I know that smell's on me. What's to say, is this how we play? Fox, get the hell out of the hen house; you won't dine that way. It's a post-modern kiss that has my nerves frayed. When I feel your teeth so deep, I know this blackest joke's on me. Cracking smiles or cracking bones; can we get back once the mouth's closed?

This was our first attempt to fuse Jawbox/Fugazi style guitar playing with breakbeat inspired drumming. This song is noticeably darker melodically (as well as lyrically) than the other earlier songs. & as much as those songs were a reaction to the noisier, more chaotic sound of our earlier band, this was written as a reaction to their brighter, more major key melodies. It's important to us as musicians to feel that we're not repeating ourselves creatively, @ least to the degree that we become predictable & stagnant.

Live we would extend the already epic end, sometimes going past the twenty minute mark.

The title comes from the name of a freshwater stream in Staten Island.

HE'S ANGRY, HE WANTS REVENGE
After writing a number of long, multi-part songs featuring a lot of sampler interplay we felt the need to write something short, sharp, & to the point; something grounded in the playing of the three of us, as opposed to the "four" of us. The result was a mutated JB style drum & synth vamp crossed w/ dank, dubby post-punk guitar lines, built off of the rather cinematic impressions of the title (which had been kicking around for years, long enough for our old band to have attempted a couple of songs using it). Live we would often do this "James Brown live" style, meaning we played everything double time (& often @ the edge of our seats).

M. HEARTLESS
This started life in a much different form. Originally, it was the opening E9-D9 guitar part played over a Brazilian-styled sampler rhythm. As great as it sounded, we were all in agreement that we had driven down a creative cul de sac. Realizing we couldn't finish the song in its current form, we rethought our approach. & while the results are more easily considered "rock", it broke the creative deadlock.

Going into the studio we expanded the arrangements, adding layers of bass & synth (trying to take a very polyrhythmic, fusion-y approach during the "verses"), as well as a new piano melody during the extended middle break. As for the end, we realized we needed a melody in the upper register of things to really make it feel huge, so we used synth & a heavily effected (reverb, delay & reverse delay, along w/ a number of distortions) guitar to push it over the top.

The name comes from a profile on Comcast's Dating On Demand taped for us by our friend Micah back in '05.

MECHANISTAS
This was written a couple of years after our EP had come out, & evolved out of the opening guitar/drum figure, although if you talk to Anne she'll swear their was a synth line there first. The sampler driven section was written as kind of a long, unwinding melody in the vein of Jaga Jazzist (though you'd probably never know). The next section, divided up into "Lonely Cubone" & "Butterfree", comes from parts Anne had written (& we had toyed w/ in various forms) since the start of the band. Originally, w/ Leslie, the ending of the song was much simpler, but we took the opportunity to expand it during recording, trying to constantly ratchet up the tension levels @ each stage & then giving an even bigger release. Leon even had the chance to play a poor man's Chris Squire (w/ some Steve Howe thrown in for good measure). Currently the only song we have yet to play live in any form.

The title comes from Leon's predilection to have titular songs not appear on the recordings they are named for.

the MODERN TIME
This is named after the classic Chaplin film Modern Times.

NEW OCEANS, WET LEAVES
The name came from a dream Mike Barrett of Belltonesuicide had while we were on tour in '08. He dreamed they had just played a song called "Wet Oceans, New Leaves".

NINE OLD MEN
I've let my nails grow so long I'm afraid that everything I touch I'll cut in two. I've spent too long patching this together just to have it come unglued through a slip of the finger or a flick of the wrist. But we all know a tongue is sharpest a moment after kissed. My mouth a wound this argument keeps opening w/o consent. Did you say the bathroom needed a new coat of red? We can paint it w/ out hands curled into fists. I've let my hair grow so long I hope that everything I've seen will fade from view. I've spent too long washing my hands of any blame to have it be untrue through the tip of a hand or a flip of the switch. But we all know we see better w/ the lights on in every room. The darkness nipping @ our heels, trying to find a new way in. You know you can never lock a door w/ a broken hinge.

After Leslie's departure, we redoubled our efforts by turning to a song fragment we had been working on just prior. We were playing against a spare, somber sampler loop inspired by Bjork (a la "Possibly Maybe"). @ first another instrumental, the melody & lyrics came all @ once one night, partially inspired by recent events. After working on a number of involved, multi-voice, multi-part songs, we wanted to pare down & write something much more open (so much so that the louder middle & end sections were added w/ trepidation).

The song takes its name from the nickname of the key animators of Disney's Golden Age.

SKELETON DANCES
This is named after the first Silly Symphony,The Skeleton Dance.

STARFINGER
Named after a series of relatively minor Legion of Super-Heroes villains.

THEME FROM 88 HERMANOS
We named this in honor of our friends & '07 tour mates Super 88.

VANCOUVER! VANCOUVER! THIS IS IT!
The title comes from geologist David A. Johnston's last transmission before the 1980 Mt. St. Helen's eruption.

WE KEEP IT LIKE A SECRET
When the house lights go down, curtain opens & you've got me all dolled up; I will not act the part I'm cast or read your scripted lines. When the run-up to the big night finds us in the schoolyard & you're crossing all the ones you've drawn I'll catch that punch you're throwing; I'll keep it like a parting kiss. Bruises are what's become of this, X the eyes of all who're left. When the audience is roaring, over roses & standing O', I will not give a hand I will not take a bow, now that we're only strangers w/ familiar faces cursing in dead languages: "We're severing these limbs before gangrene sets in." Hey, what's a bloody lip between friends? A word stained deep red? A night in another bed? It's easier to have me play the villain than to just keep up your end.