[adam]

I don't know that you're really being accurate about the songwriting. Reading Blair's updates on their website, it sounded like they worked together more on this album than the previous one.

I haven't heard the new album yet, so keep that in mind with the opinion I'm about to present.

I was talking with a friend who thinks that Aenima is far superior to Lateralus - I disagree. I do think Aenima is a poppier album. But as I thought about it more after our conversation, I realized:

1)I think the low points of Lateralus are inferior to the low points on Aenima - The Patient is meh, Parabol/Parabola I could take or leave.

2)I think the high points of Lateralus are much better than anything on Aenima: Triad and Lateralus are the best things they've written.

So, I'm not clear on what direction they're going. For most bands, I feel they move in one direction at a time: better or worse. To reach higher peaks, but be less consistent....? I don't know what to expect. So I'll go in with an open mind, both figuratively and chemically, and see what I think on Saturday.

Oh, and, for the record, I'm more or less off the pot, too. Doesn't do much for me these days. I loves me some pot cookies, but after years of suspecting that I experience an increase in irritability as a cost for the ludicrous happiness I get from them, I've decided that I probably won't be making another batch. LSD is where it's at. Wonderful, wonderful creative stimulus. Working on music on that shit is the bomb. As is listening. And I don't think I pay any price in terms of mood. Pot cookies make me nearly ecstatic, they seem to have a definite chemical effect on mood which seems to lead to a chemical imbalance. LSD doesn't seem to have an effect on mood in the same way: trips can be happy, sad or baseline, so I don't seem to pay a price in that respect with subsequent after effects. Except lack of sleep.