MASTODON drummer Brann Dailor recently spoke to Revolver magazine about the group's upcoming Warner Bros. debut, tentatively due late summer 2006.

"We want the whole thing to flow together as one big piece of music, where the end of one song links up with the beginning of the next one," he said. "We want the whole experience to be like movements in a symphony."

MASTODON started writing new riffs shortly after completing "Leviathan" and came up with a batch of ideas during various tours. But it was during last summer's Ozzfest that they made their greatest creative progress. "You can't really control when the ideas come," said Dailor. "I always have a dictaphone handy, and [singer] Brent [Hines] and [guitarist] Bill [Kelliher] bring acoustic guitars everywhere, and if they come up with something messing around, we'll record it. We always keep our minds open."

By the time MASTODON started rehearsals in mid-October, they had around 10 songs to evaluate and explore. While it's too early to know exactly what the band's next album will sound like, Dailor says it will likely be more progressive and thrashier. "We've been listening to a lot of newer KING CRIMSON and getting off on that," he explained. "But also, we toured with SLAYER and listened to them every night for three months, and that's gotta have some sort of effect."

MASTODON are tentatively planning on entering the studio in February with longtime producer Matt Bayles. "We'll probably record for a month," Dailor said. "I don't think we'll need any more time than that."