Contents All the songs on the new album (the first since 2001) are all new, according to Josh T. Pearson. "The last couple of years I got sober and started working again with a little more discipline. Before I was writing all the time but never finishing," he told Q magazine . [ 2 ] If there was any pressure at first for a new material, in a couple of years it was gone: I disappeared for a while, I needed to get out of Texas, get on the road, see some of the world. I don't like being told what to do, I guess. People kept telling me I had to put out an album. I only want to put out a good record and if you put out a good record it comes with a cost. It'll demand more things from you than you're willing to give. I haven't seen a dime from the Lift... records in eight years at least, so it wasn't like a constant reminder that people were still interested. [ 2 ] The album, recorded in "cold, cold Berlin", came as a result of a relationship he described as "pretty heartbreaking" and was difficult to create. "I went grey overnight... It was one of the most painful times of my life. I can't listen to it. I haven't listened to it since we've finished it", he said. For a while Pearson thought the album shouldn't be released at all, so painful was the feel.