There's a lot to this album, which is actually a compilation of single and EP releases from 2009-2013. During this time I was focusing more on film than on music, and a lot of that was because I was going through a sort of “mid-career crisis”. I no longer owned some of my music (due to a previous songwriting contract – a legal hurdle that I've since leapt) and as a result I didn't know if music was what I wanted to do anymore.

All that said, there's still some very interesting stuff on here. Nearly the first half of the album is me purely, finally, rocking out, while the last half is a mix of epic ballads and sonic references to previous work. In a lot of ways, I feel both the music and the lyrics deal with a sort of creative personality disorder, and a crisis of faith. I also think it's rather dark. There's where it gets its title – a kind of play on the idea that this is the dark time before my inevitable creative renaissance, as I head toward a middle-age period in my life.