David Taylor: It started out as a concept album about the levels of the ocean, Epipelagic, Mesopelagic, and so on. I kind of lost that somewhere along the way, but it still tells an ocean themed story. A story I don't think we've seen the last of. *wink*

David: I think the challenge is what attracted me. Death metal can be physically demanding, and then I also try to make it mentally demanding with odd time signatures and poly-rhythms. Metal can also be very forgiving and freeing. I love thinking about music as art. There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.

David: I mainly just want people to listen to it and like it. In a more abstract way, I want to build something that I can look back on and be proud of.

David: "Armscaller/Regretful Machinations." From the moment I started recording it, I loved it. It was a very fun process with better tracking than my other songs. I'm also a big fan of poly-rhythms. I almost kept the song as just rhythm guitar with the occasional bending background guitar in it, but decided a couple weeks before I was done that it probably needed more than that. It was like finding the second half of the song, filling the hole inside of it. I think of it as finding the soulmate of what the song had been before. I'm a romantic.

David: I think I'm more influenced by genres as opposed to bands. I have a hard time nailing bands down. Drone metal I definitely get from Khanate and Earth. There's some My Silent Wake and Pÿlon in me. Blotted Science is really impacting how I think of music, melody-wise and rhythmically. They're currently my favorite band. Then there's an inexplicable jazz influence. I don't even listen to jazz, except for my uncle Jeff Taylor's albums, and that's kind of a different style. I just like the way jazz feels.

David: I really liked cutting songs and segments. Probably the most difficult part was keeping segments that I would've enjoyed cutting, but that would have changed the whole structure of the album and taken way longer to finish. I'm trying to streamline my process in the future.

David: To be loving and accepting, no matter what. It can even apply to yourself and things you do. I'm my greatest critic, but at least I know that.