The album was recorded in Tennessee with producer Nick Raskulinecz (Deftones, Alice in Chains, Rush). And although Mastodon are known for their conceptual approach to music, this time they kept things a little more free-form. During a break in recording a few months ago, guitarist Brent Hinds told this writer, "Every time we do an album people expect to do another concept album. I'm really hoping it's not a concept album but you never know. Stranger things could happen. Who knows what could happen? Right now we're just putting the album together piece by piece and it's coming together."

It seems like the album will be typically varied from a sonic perspective too: "I'm playing a lot of slide guitar on this record, oddly enough," Hinds said. "I've always been partial to slide and I guess I use it in kind of a David Gilmour, psychedelic sense. I'm not using it in the traditional tunings or map-outs of E, but nonetheless it's screaming! It's a screaming instrument! Especially when you track a couple of tracks of slide. It's pretty awesome."