In the early months of 2002 I found myself living in a room the size of a walk-in closet with no windows. I had my studio set up in there and a futon mattress I'd roll out on the floor before bedtime. I stayed in that room for a little over four months obsessed with the recording process, and I emerged from that period with some of the most sinister work I had produced to date.

     "High Noon" was the centerpiece from that collection of songs as it epitomized my experiences in that creative dungeon. Never before had I reached a point of lyrical fluidity in my writing. Lines seemed to fall from the sky and trickle into the cave of my head during those months.

     "Noon" initially came to be from a spellbinding loop that haunted my dreams. After weaving the bass line into it and defining the song, I set out to orchestrate a twisted and drooping guitar arsenal that could torture itself around the droning drawl of the vocals in the verses. Originally, the song fixated itself around this relationship until the bridge demolished it with its crescendo. Later when we re-recorded it, Chris suggested we tear the choruses up with pounding drums and some destructive guitar sections. We borrowed a vocal approach from "Magic Wand" for the choruses and gave them a renewed sense of fury.

     When we brought the song into Threshold for the mix, Pete threw himself at it. He cut down the bass line in the verses and let my vocal steer the ship while sharpening the undertones of the chaos into slicing razor blades. Robbie came down to the studio later that night and heard us doing the final pass of the mixing's automation. He suggested we use "High Noon" as the record's title track, and later brought some of the lyrical imagery into the project's artwork, which ultimately gave the record its life pulse.