Walla claimed on October 18, 2007, that a new album was "in full swing" and that they had six songs completed. He went on to call the new music "weird," "spectacular," and "creepy," saying that it contained "lots of blood." He noted that the album had a "Can jam" that lasted 10 minutes, which Walla said that he would have never imagined doing in 1998. In a "Billboard" piece in January 2008, the band promised the album to be a "curve ball" and said that although it would have slower songs, there would be some surprises. Walla said, "I'm really excited about it. It's really got some teeth. The landscape of the thing is way, way more lunar than the urban meadow sort of thing that has been happening for the last couple of records." Walla added that the album was "louder and more dissonant and ... abrasive." They claimed that they were influenced by "synth-punk band Brainiac."