Work begins on fourth album

With promotional efforts for Out of the Vein fizzling out in 2004, the band again was less busy the following few years. Jenkins helped with producing then-girlfriend Vanessa Carlton ‘s album Harmonium ; the experience motivated Jenkins to start writing a solo album of his own. At the same time, Fredianelli, Salazar, and Hargreaves had been working on music together, and upon hearing it, Jenkins scrapped his solo plan in favor of working on a fourth studio album with the band. Work on the album began in early 2005, but progressed slowly, and Jenkins suffered from writer’s block and struggled to write lyrics for the songs that had been created for him by the rest of the band. As of mid-2006, the album was untitled and had a rough release date of 2007. Around this time, Salazar became disillusioned with the band, and left. A replacement for Salazar was not found; in the coming years, Abe Millet and Leo Kramer played bass while touring, while a variety of bass players filled in while recording in the studio. In 2007, Jenkins announced that the fourth studio album had a tentative title of The Hideous Strength , had around 35 songs written for it, and that some of the lyrics had become political in nature. The band continued to tour, with the band previewing work-in-progress versions of new songs while Jenkins continued to revise lyrics. Despite it being years since the band released an album, the band still maintained a strong following in live performances, and the band continued to tour while Jenkins struggled with writer’s block. Fredianelli noted that lyrics were continually being rewritten, and as a result, songs often needed to be re-recorded to accommodate the changes, which continued to delay an album release.