From Brick:

We have had several e-mails from fans in the last couple of weeks wondering what the status of the new album is, and if there is any news about the next Hourglass album. So I figure I better let everyone know the latest with the band. We are hard at work still on the new album, and I will say that it is going to be amazing. Perhaps I should fill everyone in on the reasons that this album is taking so long to write and get done. First of all we had about 75% of the album done when Sam Doty decided to quit, and then just a few months later Eric Robertson left to pursue his other musical opportunities. That really screwed us, to be honest. It was poor timing on their part, but in the end I know that it will actually be for the better. The reason it is going to work out for the best is because Eric Blood and Jerry have really given the band a kick in the butt and they are truly amazing musicians. Their playing on this album is incredible and they are adding so much to the Hourglass sound. When Eric Blood and Jerry rejoined, we decided it would probably be for the best if we just re-wrote the entire album with their input on every track. So we kept all of my, John and Cody's ideas that were really strong, and then we have been rewriting every song. In the process we have ended up writing several new songs as well. Needless to say, we have a very large amount of music on our hands. The song titles for the next album are:

On the Brink
Façade
Estranged
38th Floor
Skeletons
Faces
No Life at All
Delirium
Pawn II
Oblivious to the Obvious

We have been working on some of these songs for a couple of years now, and some of them have been written in the last few months. A couple of the songs are shorter (at least for Hourglass), and at least one and maybe two will clock in at over 20 minutes. I'm happy to say that I'm not the only lyricist on this album. John wrote the lyrics for "Skeletons" and Eric wrote the lyrics for "No Life at All." Jerry came up with the idea and concept for the lyrics in "Faces" and I wrote them, so even Jerry had some input on this album's lyrics.

There are, as usual, some new sounds on this album. I have some new guitar pedals and John has added to his ever-expanding drum kit. This album is sounding a little more keyboard oriented than our other albums to me, which is a good thing. I can't praise Eric's bass playing enough. His playing is very Victor Wooten inspired, and he has brought that type of playing into this new album, which is something we have never had in Hourglass. One of the songs is an instrumental. I'll let you guess which one based on the song titles.

Melodies are written for three or four songs and we still have a long way to go on several of those songs as far as harmonies are concerned. We will be finishing the melodies and harmonies over the next few months. Musically it is basically done except for many guitar and keyboard solos that need to be written still. There are even a couple of bass solos that need writing too. The bottom line is we are really excited about how it is sounding and we want to make sure that we have everything as perfect as we can before we hit the studio. We don't know exactly when that will be, but we hope it is soon. We won't go into the studio until we are satisfied that everything is as good as it can be.

I hope this fills everyone in on the latest in Hourglass. We are trying to fit a couple of shows in soon so watch the website for an update about that.

Keep on rockin'. -Brick