1. All in a Nut
2. Memory Pill
3. A Trace
4. Inside of Me
5. Mind Body Problem
6. Extinction
7. When the Night Is Dark
8. An Emotional Brain
Album Summary: Our music is about brain, mind, and mental disorders. Hey, it’s heavy mental. Our signature song is “All in a Nut,” named for the amygdala (from the Greek, meaning almond). So why do we feel so afraid? It’s all in a nut. As we all know, “An Emotional Brain” is a hard thing to tame. Listen to the song to know why. Philosophers have long argued about the relation of mind to body. The protagonist of “Mind Body Problem” faces this deep dilemma. His ex-girlfriend, after jilting him, wants to come back–his body wants her so but his mind says no. Another philosophical point is Descartes’ idea that we have privileged access to our own thoughts, and that no one else can be in there. As “Inside of Me” explains, “you can’t see inside of me, that’s a place, only I can be.” Past lovers often leave strong and enduring memories. “A Trace” tells a story about this. Memory researchers in the know will figure out that the scientific theme underlying this song is the dominant trace theory. Sometimes we have memories that we can’t get rid of. In post-traumatic stress disorder, these can be debilitating. We’ve done research in rats showing that a specific memory can be deleted by carefully timing the retrieval of that memory with a drug, a so-called “Memory Pill,” hence the name of that song. “Extinction” tells the story of human demise, and our replacement by androids, hairless and brainless cyborgs that rule the earth with their superior electronic minds. In a nutshell, that’s Heavy Mental.