Six years. It\u2019s longer than the president sits in office or most people spend in college. In the music industry, it\u2019s practically an eternity. Bands form, blow up and break up in that time period; new, disturbingly awful trends develop, old forms of media die out, social networks spread their insidious seed through shiny handheld devices no one actually needs but everybody wants.<\/p>\n
Six years is also the amount of time that has passed since\u00a0Strung Out\u2019s<\/b>\u00a0last album. The Southern California tech-punk quintet had been so reliable for two decades\u2014write, record, tour, repeat cycle roughly once every two years\u2014that to go this long without new music felt like cause for alarm. Frontman Jason Cruz shared similar feelings.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to a point where you decide if you\u2019re going to go on or stop,\u201d he admits. \u201cEveryone kind of just lived life for a little bit. I think that\u2019s pretty important if you consider yourself a songwriter or an artist of any kind. You have to live and experience other things in your life to have something to write about, to give value to what you\u2019re singing about.\u201d<\/p>\n