Another factor in the change of the band's sound was due to Wilson's meeting of Israeli rock singer Aviv Geffen. The two met when Geffen, a fan of Wilson's music, invited Porcupine Tree on a tour in 2000 in support of the band's previous album, "Lightbulb Sun". Touring together lead to a separate musical collaboration named Blackfield. Geffen, not being a fan of metal music, kept that project in more of a pop rock genre, sounding more like prior Porcupine Tree albums "Stupid Dream" and "Lightbulb Sun". This gave Wilson an outlet for that side of his music, allowing him to concentrate on more metal sounds with Porcupine Tree without abandoning the prior genre altogether either. Rounding out the changes was the departure of drummer Chris Maitland, with the replacement being Gavin Harrison, who joined in early 2002. Maitland was unable to make a larger commitment with being signed to a major record label, and the band found Harrison's style more fitting to a more metal-sounding album. Wilson summarized the band's changes at the time as: "In Absentia" was all written before Gavin came on; even the drum parts were kind of programmed. But it’s one of those times sometimes in life when everything comes together. I’d written these songs and I was very much more interested at that time—having worked with Opeth—in the idea of combining a more kind of brutal or metal aspect back again into the fabric of the music. At the same time Gavin came along and Gavin was a very different drummer to our previous drummer, Chris Maitland. He was much more of a powerhouse and he was much more technical. He had more of a contemporary edge to his sound so it was just one of those really lucky things that he just came in and he played those songs and just blew everyone away and everything just kind of came together. And of course it was the first record we made for our new label and we got signed to a big American label for the first time Records. Gavin was the final piece of that equation in a way—he just totally raised the bar in terms of not just the drumming but just the musicianship right throughout the band. Everyone was listening to Gavin and saying, “Fuck, wow. We really need to step up our game.”