A Crow Left of the Murder… completed

By December the new album, which was recorded at Southern Tracks Recording Studios in Atlanta , Georgia was recorded live, opposed to recording each instrument at separate times, and was produced by Brendan O’Brien ( Pearl Jam , Soundgarden , Rage Against the Machine , Stone Temple Pilots ) was completed and scheduled for release. Titled A Crow Left of the Murder… , the album was to be an enhanced CD with behind-the-scenes video. In the videos, Einziger and Boyd discussed their new songs. Einziger described them as “like the old shit, but older. It’s very different. It’s very energetic and fast, and a lot of it is more technical. I guess maybe in the vein of more of our older songs; they don’t sound like our older songs. They are more exploratory.” It was the last Incubus album to be labelled as ” alternative metal ” by the media, with subsequent albums from the band diverting even further from this sound. On December 15, 2003, the first single, ” Megalomaniac “, was released. It raised controversy when it was said to be an attack on the Bush administration, and was banned from daytime view on MTV (despite the band saying that it was not an attack on a particular person, rather a comment on some people’s negative attitudes). However, the band was actually pleased with this nighttime viewing restriction. Says Boyd, “When we heard our video had been relegated to late night rotation, I think that all of us were secretly like, ‘Yes!’ “. Pasillas reflected Boyd’s sentiments, saying, “I think it’s okay if people think that we’re trying to make a political statement. Whatever anyone conjures up or takes from our music is good; I mean, our point is to get people thinking.”