In 2001, the solid, catchy song writing skill behind moe.'s crisp musical attack was rewarded with a four-star review in Rolling Stone for their album DITHER. The band responded with their next album not by resting on any laurels it may have earned, but by taking a new chance, pushing the limits of not just song writing, but song crafting. A desire to bridge the seemingly incompatible worlds of chaos and control led to 2003's WORMWOOD, an experiment in combining live tracks with studio manipulation. The risk paid off, earning four stars in Blender Magazine. Now, with the new release THE CONCH, moe. takes it yet further with the next logical step in exploring this unorthodox, albeit successful, approach.

"The idea was to take the elements of WORMWOOD that worked, both musically and technically, and exploit those ideas a little bit further and see if we couldn't do it under less chaotic, more controlled circumstances this time," says guitarist Al Schnier.

That quest for control within chaos permeates all aspects of creating THE CONCH – from the band's musical and interpersonal democratic process to the album's very name. "The Conch comes from Lord of the Flies," says bassist Rob Derhak. "The Conch is a symbol of keeping things civil. We sort of took all these elements of us playing as if one of us has a conch and then it's taken away and it turns to chaos. That is very similar to our lives. That song is a microcosm of the album and our lives."

Without moe.'s conscious effort to maintain control, the last fifteen months could easily have found a lesser band devolving into discord. The original recording sessions for THE CONCH took place during the spring of 2005; however, due to the band's rigorous touring schedule, the project continued at several different locations across the country.

"Some people do albums in a really short amount of time and it winds up sounding kind of homogeneous," says guitarist Chuck Garvey. "This album was done over such a long period of time that there's evolution. The drums were all done at the same time, but a lot of the other work on the album was spread out so we kind of had different ears and a different attitude each time we worked on it."

It is this spirit that manifests on THE CONCH and gives the album a versatile cohesiveness.

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