Townsend revealed last year that the symphony - which he described as a "hellish apocalypse" - would be recorded in Surround Sound in Belgium and would come complete with a visual counterpart.

Now he says he has much of the work written, and that he's finished his book which he previously described as "ridiculous." Townsend tells Dead Rhetoric: "Typically when I do interviews, one of the things I hear a lot is that I'm constantly busy and going, going, and going - but really I just think I'm efficient.