In 2003, Hagström hinted at the direction of the band's next album by saying, "There's only one thing I really feel that is important. We've never measured our success in terms of sales, because we're quite an extreme band. It's more that people understand where we're coming from. I get more out of a fan coming up and saying that we've totally changed their way of looking on metal music, than having like 200 kids buy it. I mean, it would be nice for the money, but that's not why we're in it. So what I'd like to see is that we keep progressing. Keeping the core of what Meshuggah has always been, but exploring the bar, so to speak. "Destroy Erase Improve" was like exploring the dynamics of the band, "Chaosphere" was exploring the aggressiveness, the all-out side, and "Nothing" is more of a sinister, dark, pretty slow album, actually. So honestly, now I don't know where we're going. It might be a mix of all of them."