Dredg frontman Gavin Hayes admits to Spinner that Pink Floyd's 'Dark Side of the Moon' is such a sick concept album that he remains "quite jealous of it." That might also explain Dredg's predisposition for recording concept albums. Or, at least, thematic ones. Initially inspired by a Salvador Dali painting, the band's stand-out 2002 disc 'El Cielo' dealt largely with sleep paralysis and their latest, 'The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion' was directly influenced by a Salmon Rushdie essay entitled 'Imagine There's No Heaven: A Letter to the 6 Billionth Citizen.'

"The concept unfolded after we had written a few songs," Hayes tells Spinner, recalling that guitarist Mark Engles stumbled across the essay and realized the content was directly applicable to material they had already been working on. "From that point on, we used the essay as an influence and template for the writing and art direction."

Conceding that "books, movies, music, stand-up comedy, news and conversation have all driven concepts," Hayes still maintains that the new disc is not a proper concept album, per se. "It is more of a record inspired by rather than directly based on," he says. "We are trying to avoid the conceptual label this time around. That being said, some of the topics include human progress, being humble about belief and opinion, expanding the mind and avoiding indoctrination."

Is categorization related to indoctrination? We're not entirely sure but somehow it seems like it would go hand-in-hand with the band wishing to avoid the 'conceptual' stereotype. Fine. 'The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion' is not a concept album then. It's a thematic one. And, trust us, there's nothing wrong with that.