Released on CD and download in June 2007, Reuben's third album was recorded in three London Studios in December the previous year, and was the first full album to be arranged, paid for and released by their own label, Hideous Records.

It had been a difficult album to put together for many reasons, the main one being that at the start of proceedings the band had no label behind them. Further to this, the high level of touring that had sprung up after the second album left very little time for the writing and rehearsal process, and upon their return home, tensions in the band made rehearsals difficult. As a result, although it was rehearsed as tightly as possible, it was the only one of Reuben's albums not to be demoed by the whole band, instead relying on songwriter Jim's home demos for reference.

Many songs, including 'Deadly Lethal Ninja Assassin', 'An Act Of Kindness' and 'We're All Going Home In An Ambulance' had been in gestation since before the second album was recorded. Most of the material on the record was of a darker and more aggressive tone than the previous two albums, with many of the songs featuring the long/complicated structures that many fans had found missing on the second. By way of contrast, the album also featured some of the band's poppiest moments, including their first piano-led song 'Agony/Agatha' and the first track to feature an acoustic guitar on any of their albums, 'Good Luck'. In terms of musicianship, the songs pushed the three band members to the limits of their meagre abilities, with some moments approaching math-metal complexity.

Reuben had heard Engerica b-sides 'Detective Show' and 'Now Or Never' from their friends in the band and learnt that they were produced by Sean Genockey, who had engineered their album 'There Are No Happy Endings'. Impressed by the sound, they arranged to record demos of two new tracks with Sean and engineer Jack Ruston in Ruston's Wimbledon studio, Soul Valley, in the summer of 2006. Footage from this session was included in the '...Aldershot' film. Pleased with the tracks and engaged by the Genockey and Ruston, the band took the demos on tour and duly agreed to record the third album with the pair upon their return.

Following an intense period of refining and polishing the songs, they then recorded the backing to nine tracks over four days at Livingstone studios in Wood Green before repairing to Soul Valley to complete recording and then to Genockey's own studio, Black Dog in Worcester Park, to mix. The two demos recorded in the summer, Cities On Fire and Agony/Agatha, were partially re-recorded and mixed with the rest of the tracks for inclusion on the album. The record was blessed with 'guest' performances from Million Dead singer Frank Turner, Hundred Reasons guitarist Paul Townsend and notably Hannah Shark of Aldershot band Arthur, who sang joint lead vocals on Reuben's first bona-fide duet, Good Luck. The sessions were not without the usual frustrations but were overall a happy experience, as is documented in the 'Studio Diary' videos that were uploaded to the band's website after each day of recording, a common practice for many bands but a first for Reuben. The videos, which would become more and more complex and absurd as the month long venture continued were extremely popular, later included as an extra on the '...Aldershot' DVD and can still be seen online here.

The album was released to critical acclaim from both the online and paper press, with many critics noting its complex and aggressive sound, many heralding it (perhaps somewhat unfairly) a return to form for the band. Kerrang, called it "...an articulate, intventive beast of a record: a monster truck destroying everything in its path.." and placed it thirteenth in their top 100 albums of 2007, and it even made 'Metal album of the month' in mainstream rock magazine Q, who called it "spiteful, sarcastic and inventive". The band were very happy with the record, admitting in one interview that it was "...blatantly our best one...", and it sold out of its initial pressing run within weeks, making it a significant success for a tiny record label run essentially by the three band members and their manager.

The tracks:

Cities on Fire A big, epic song that had featured heavily in the live sets of the previous year's tours

We're All Going Home in An Ambulance An incredibly aggressive and complex number about racism and casual violence

Suffocation Of The Soul A long, proggy effort with a hypnotic bassline and a vaguely medieval mid section

Deadly Lethal Ninja Assassin A deliberately American-flavoured single about being a teenager

An Act Of Kindness A complex number which features something that resembles a proper guitar solo

Crushed Under The Weight Of the Enormous Bullshit A horrible, lumbering monster about that state of modern rock music

Good Luck A bittersweet acoustic duet

Agony/Agatha A balls-out, pop-rock bonanza with a crushing riff in its tail

Three Hail Marys Confusing, many-sectioned behemoth with electro beats at the start

Blood, Bunny, Larkhall Lead single off the album, an experiment in sounding as horrible as possible

A Short History Of Nearly Everything A thoughtful, meandering slow-burner, perhaps managing to squash everything that is Reuben into one song...

The facts:

The album's title is taken from the book 'Nil: A Land Beyond Belief' by James Turner. It is one of many propaganda slogans used by the people of the fictional country Nil, who have rejected anything at all that might possibly cause offence, including, drastically, human life itself. Later questions as to whether it referred to the band's recent departure from Xtra Mile were met by embarrassed apologies for not being that clever.

As part of an interview question, one Kerrang journalist pointed out that the album track-listing includes the words 'Fire', 'Ambulance', 'Suffocation', 'Deadly', 'Assassin', 'Crushed', 'Agony', and 'Blood'. Singer Jim assured her that everything was fine at home.

Eleven tracks is the fewest number on any Reuben album. Only two other songs were seriously considered for inclusion - 'The Weight Of The World', which would later turn up on the b-side to 'Deadly Lethal...', and a song about plane crashes that was partially written and then abandoned by Guy.

'Cities on Fire' was written in one go and then performed as part of the set at a Reuben show at Fibbers of York. The original version, which differs slightly from the final song, was filmed and can be seen here:



The song is about the fall of Rome and the fire of London, and the title 'Cities On Fire' was briefly considered as a possible title for the album, with even artwork ideas being mocked up.

If you listen VEEEEEEEEEEERRRRRY carefully to the guitar fade-out at the end of the song, you just might hear the faint sizzling of an accordion, which was picked up from the radio through one of the guitar amps during recording.

'We're All Going Home In An Ambulance' was named after a popular pre-fight hooligan chant and was brought to songwriter Jim's attention as being a phrase that guitar tech Chris Rouse had to shout down a phone line with his tongue between his teeth in order to win a free Tango mini-megaphone.

Although the band had never heard the track at this point, only the chant itself, the 'ambulance' refrain was in fact used to great effect on 'Concrete Jungle' by The Specials, a whole quarter of a century earlier. So much for being clever and original then.

Believe it or not, the dischord bit JUST BEFORE it all goes totally crazy with the chugga-chugga riff was originally part of the first version of Scared Of The Police, with the missing lyric, "Danger! Violence! Fire! Ambulance..."

The nonsense that is whispered at the start of the song is "Grave goods, get under my skin". It means nothing at all, and is a unique example of the way lyrics for Reuben songs are sometimes written, with good-sounding gibberish that fits the rhythmic pattern eventually morphing into more meaningful prose.

Live performances of 'Suffocation Of The Soul' forced guitarist Jim to break a life-long vow and buy not one but TWO effects units – an octave pedal and a delay whotsit.

'Deadly Lethal...' is the zenith of the band's attempts to sound like their heroes Weezer, in particular their second album Pinkerton, a failed attempt at which ended up as 'Freddy Kreuger' The double-tracked vocal, present from demo–stage and the only use of this technique on the album, was a direct attempt to emulate the American sound of some of Weezer's recordings. All this will seem incredibly ironic when you read about 'Crushed Under The Weight...'.

Parts of the 'victorian' section of 'Deadly Lethal' were intended to be sung by Biffy Clyro singer Simon Neil but he was unable to attend the studio sessions, mainly because he was busy promoting one of the most successful albums the underground UK rock scene has ever known, but also partially because he lives in Glasgow.

At the beginning of the track, many different outtakes from the start of various vocal takes can be heard, with singer Jim reacting to hearing himself getting stroppy about whether or not he should "bother trying to do it properly". This refers to an unfortunate situation that often arose when recording Jim's vocals, whereby engineers would run the entire track just to listen to it, but Jim, alone in the vocal booth, would assume they were going for a take and give the vocal his all, only to discover nothing had been recorded. As well as being frustrating for the loss of a potentially good take, this problem was compounded by the fact that sessions for both Pilot and Racecar had been seriously delayed by problems with Jim losing his voice in the studio, so to push it to the limit for nothing was incredibly unnerving for the singer, who constantly feared he was 'running out of voice'. However, it all got recorded OK in the end, and he and Sean are still good friends. Only the other week he bought a bag of chips and let Sean eat almost a third of them.

The chorus of 'An Act Of Kindness' actually dates back to when the band were still called Angel and had 'Racecar' producer Jason Wilcock on drums.

The math-core beat down in the middle of the song is the one being discussed by Jim and Guy in the 'drum machine' part of the '...Aldershot' film.

'Crushed Under The Weight...', about how many rock albums, notably second or third albums by favourite bands had failed to excite songwriter Jim, had many titles before settling on the one it now has. The first, in direct acknowledgement to this theme, was 'Weezer Used To Be Well Good', before being replaced briefly with 'Third Album Blues', a reference both to Weezer's disappointing third album, and in sarcastic anticipation of general response to Reuben's own third album. The title was then changed to 'Ray Charles Is Going To Burn In Hell,' or simply 'Ray Charles' on various pre-album lists, after a quote in the movie biopic, 'Ray'. This title was abandoned after the band searched for the quote in the film, hoping to include it in the intro to the track, only to find that these exact words are not said. The final 'Crushed' title was originally applied to 'We're All Going Home...' in direct response to having to play a terrible indoor festival in the armpit of nowhere.

The song's syncopated 'stabbing' riff was inspired by an intruder alert heard in a 1964 episode of Doctor Who entitled 'The Keys Of Marinus'. The original demo, produced at four in the morning, was entitled 'Nightmare' and was a lot, lot slower.

'Good Luck' also had a couple of different titles, including 'Forget You', from the rarely uttered 'clean' version of 'Fuck you' used by various funny Americans.

The song is not, as many fans suspect, about the chip shop that Jim was working in at the time. It is in fact about the music shop in which both he and Jon worked prior to the first album. The events described are completely true, with the omission (for song-writing purposes) of the fact that Jim was in all honesty probably fired for not really knowing how to play any instruments, telling customers where they could buy various items a lot cheaper elsewhere, and generally being a bit useless. This is borne out by the fact that Jon was asked back to the shop after said tour. It is also not about any particular girl.

The band had not met guest singer Hannah before the studio date but had heard her singing in her band Arthur and asked manager Barney Jeavons, who knew them well, to invite her to sing on the album. As the song was written in first person perspective, she was asked if she wouldn't mind singing about a girl from a boy's perspective, as songwriter Jim had always thought it a shame when singers change the words, and therefore the intent, of the original song. Stand up, Joss Stone. Stand up, but whatever you do don't sing.

As documented in the studio diaries, Jim recorded the guitar for the song (on a very expensive guitar that used to belong to a Rolling Stone) with his trousers down.

A rough mix of 'Forget You' with Jim singing both parts for Hannah to listen to can be heard here

Another attempt to sound like a particular favourite band, this time Ben Folds Five, Agony/Agatha is explicitly about trying to write a song on piano, but was first heard by most fans in its live 'guitar only' form. Cue outrage upon album release.

The title is a massive cop-out as the band could not decide which A-word to call it.

'Three Hail Marys' had been demoed for second album 'Very Fast Very Dangerous' but was not recorded in favour of putting together a snappier album that moved away from the long twisty songs of the band's debut. It appears on INWT unchanged from the VFVD demo.

The crushing 'Keep your mouth shut' end section of the song was written in as Jim's response to a show the band had played with Funeral for Friend – the band's live sound was, he claims, '...incredibly heavy, but the music they were playing wasn't actually very heavy at all - it seemed a wasted opportunity. I was dying for them to suddenly bash their guitars on the bottom notes, slower and slower, with Matt screaming some insane threatening nonsense over the top but they didn't, so I thought we would."

The lyrics to the chorus of 'Blood Bunny' are a loose continuation of the theme of history and science that started with 'Cities...', lost its way through most of the album, and then picks up again with the last two tracks. In the way that the excesses of London were purged by flame in a similar manner to Rome a thousand years before, songwriter Jim reflects that if you buy a copy of Rubber Soul on vinyl and play it on a record player, you are hearing exactly the same thing that your mum and dad heard back in the sixties, or if you pick up a copy of Julius Caesar's war diaries, you can read (barring translation) exactly the same words that the consulate in ancient Rome read, before the birth of Jesus Christ, literally 'wrapping yourself up in layers of history.' Coupled with the 'Short History' vibe of 'don't worry about your cut knee because this stone has stone has been here for millions of years and will be here for millions more' starts to sound like some pretty heavy shit when you compare it a song about a red and black scarf.

'A Short History Of Nearly Everything' is of course named after an immense book by Bill Bryson about immense things like the universe and all that jazz.

The song originally started with the big riff at the end and was an attempt to write 'the stupidest song ever'.

The album artwork was supplied by Australian artist Ashley Wood, famous for his work on the Metal Gear Solid comics, the recent re-vamp of Tank Girl, and his own book series, "PopBot". A hero of Jim's, he agreed to lend several of his incredible paintings to the album campaign after receiving an email from Jim and hearing 'Every Time A Teenager...'.

Upsettingly, the album artwork was never printed entirely correctly. The original painting, which can be viewed here is clearly more green than brown, although a brown version had been prepared by the band for use on the inner digipak. In the event, the image came out brown on both the slip case and the inner digipak, both marring the effect of the striking cover and completely pointless-ising the re-use of the same image on the inner digipak. The band were not aware of this error until they opened a box of the album at a midnight signing event, which was a bit of a bummer. Even more inexplicably, when efforts were made to correct this mistake for the second pressing, the cover came out nice and green but then so did the inner digipak, meaning that sadly the artwork as it was intended never saw the light of day. It's still beautiful though.

The four photos on the inlay of the album ARE: The piano in Jon's parents' house that was used to record the album, a bizarre photo of an unidentified dog in a toy car that Jim's wife Katie found at a boot sale, a double-exposure of the equipment at Black Dog Studios and Jim eating dinner, and long term roadie/tech Dan Kav's shiny new 'In Nothing We Trust' tattoo.

The live photo on the back of the booklet is a still from some video footage that roadie/tech Chris Rouse took of the band playing in Germany on the Billy talent tour. The original pre-distort photo on the front of the booklet was also taken in Germany on the same tour, this time by photographer Garvin Nolte. Having visited the show to photograph Reuben for his 'Dog Likes Music' project, he was persuaded by the band, who hated arranging photoshoots, to quickly snap off a few pics of them for various promotional purposes. What a guy!