It was the summer of two thousand and four. After an arduous year of living in cramped quarters, our time in our one bedroom apartment was nearing an end. We began the search for a new place to continue the madness we called our lives. Our two roommates were lucky enough to stumble upon a house located a few miles deeper into the swamps of South Jersey. It was an old, abandoned ice cream parlor with an apartment attached to the back. We checked it out: dilapidated, overgrown with weeds, and so close to a stretch of busy highway, so that there always lay the risk of cars and trucks to go careening off the road, destroying the structure and any of its inhabitants. This was to be our new home.

Once we were settled into our new surroundings the writing process began. Around January of two thousand five we started to focus on our next release. We talked about how we wanted the next album to accomplish all things we were unable to do in the past. Although we were content with our past recordings, we always felt more could have been done and we wanted to make sure that dull sting of doubt would not be felt quite so much this time. The idea was brought up to record the album ourselves. We thoroughly reviewed our finances. Of course by that, it must be understood our “finances” consisted of pooled money coming from each persons’ paychecks working mundane jobs. It was, and in many ways still is, an endless cycle of working to get money to play music, in order to cope with the menial jobs needed to be held down to support ourselves and our vice. In our own true fashion, we went head first into a metaphorical plate of glass. We had nothing more than a hope of a soft landing. From there on out we turned the store front area of our home into our own personal recording space. Walls were erected, windows were boarded up, and the room was completely gutted out. Every cent we were collectively making was put right into this project. It was beginning to come together.

As people began to find out, help was being offered from all over. All of our friends pitched in, providing us with borrowed equipment and much needed advice on the best way to handle certain tasks. A friend of a friend was able to arrange a great opportunity for us to accomplish post-production with an experienced engineer at a great facility. A long time acquaintance was also able to provide us with the majority of the necessary equipment for an extremely reasonable price. It came at a great time too, because at this point our house, along with its occupants, began to suffer a great deal. Our gas had been turned off leaving us with no hot water, heat, or any means to cook food. It was an ugly, hopeless, and oddly enough, at times, affirming symphony to be heard. The squeal of rats and the skittish high pitched drone of the fridge motor would accompany the road construction and thunderous rattle of the trucks passing by. Times seemed to be getting tough. We were figuratively and literally hungry. Before we knew it June rolled around and we began tracking. Long days and even longer nights followed. We yelled, screamed, sweated, barely slept, barely ate, and regrettably caused some property damage for a few months, leaving us with what you hold in your hands today.

Like everything else, all good things come to end. The house where we spent the past year living, writing, and recording this album is set to be torn down, but we are left with these songs as a solid memory of our time spent there. It was in the truest sense a group effort. This is the product of our friends, families, acquaintances, eccentric tattoo artists, random waitresses, convenient store clerks, and just about everything and everyone else used as inspiration. Though we wouldn’t admit it then, some of the best times we’ve had was in Malaga.