The Sun and the Moon

After touring for all this time, The Bravery were better musicians, better singers, a better band. They wanted to make an album that would reflect their growth as musicians. So they recruited producer Brendan O'Brien, well known for bringing out the best performance in a group (see: Rage Against the Machine, Neil Young etc.). The band wanted to try new textures and sounds, so they moved to Brendan's Atlanta studio and grabbed any instrument they could get their hands on, and choked it until something good came out. That included antique pump organs ("Believe"), Mellotrons ("Time Won't Let Me Go"), a string quartet ("The Ocean"), and a host of Pet Sounds-worthy vocal arrangements ("This is Not the End," "Above and Below").

Despite this newfound creativity and sense of musical exploration, the band also wanted to keep the energy that came with recording in the basement in New York. To that end, the band split its time between Atlanta and NYC. The resulting album is a hybrid of the two experiments – with a fair amount recorded in the back of tour buses as well.