Mudvayne have already come full circle, and they're only on their second album.

The Peoria, Illinois, progressive metal quartet has named their new album The End of All Things To Come, a play on The Beginning of All Things To End, the group's November 2001 LP which combined their self-released EP, Kill, I Oughtta, with live tracks and remixes of their 2000 debut, L.D. 50. Expected to be a 12-track offering, the album is set for release November 19, according to the band's publicist.

The arrival of The End of All Things To Come will be prefaced by "Not Falling," which should surface at radio early next month. A video for the single is scheduled to be shot soon after, though neither a treatment nor director has been decided upon.

Mudvayne started recording the album in a Minneapolis studio in July with producer David Bottrill (see [article id="1456118"]"Mudvayne Hiding In Secret Studio With Guitars, Calculators"[/article]).

The new album also promises a new identity for the make-up-wearing musicians, one that forgoes the gore of their old image for out-of-this-world alien veneers. Their names have changed, too, though just as with the title, they're not complete departures. Singer Kud now goes by Chud; guitarist Gurrg is called Guug; drummer Spag has assumed the name Spug; and bassist Ryknow is now known as Ru-D.

While their names have changed, the songs -- or at least the foundations for them -- remain the same. The band, which was affixed with the label "math metal," is still taking a by-the-numbers approach to songwriting by using numerical patterns to come up with the unconventional structures and time signatures that marked L.D. 50.

"Life has numbers, and I'm sure a lot of higher thinking mathematicians would say that math is not a confining space and I think that we don't see it that way either," Ru-D said. "It's very liberating and we enjoy working with patterns and themes. Number themes are one of the easiest ways to expound on an [idea] that you bring to the table. You can examine it for the numbers and create themes. We haven't changed from that."

With their new album, which follows the successful (over 552,000 copies sold) L.D. 50, Mudvayne is expected to move further away from the underground roots of Kill, I Oughtta. Ru-D understands how that might bother some of their older fans who liked the idea of keeping the relatively unknown band for themselves, but ultimately views the band's growing fanbase as a sign they're on the right track.

"It's a real compliment and a real realization that you've got something," he said of the band's increasing popularity. "It's not yours anymore even, it's theirs too. [Fans have] latched onto that special something that is Mudvayne. Some of them have probably latched onto it just as strong as we have, and that's really, really special that we've dragged people along for the ride. And hopefully not just dragged them along, but asked them to get into the car with us and go down the road."