Mike Portnoy talked about the “Lost in Oblivion” track off Sons of Apollo‘s debut album, telling Inside Out:
“The working title of this was ‘Rushuggah,’ it’s a riff Bumblefoot had that was kinda half Rush, half Meshuggah.
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“That riff starts the song, and the whole drum pattern and the breakdown are based on that riff, and for me, that was hard!
“I had to rehearse that – a good 30 minutes of us having to loop it to come up with the pattern.
“It feels 4/4, but if you try to tap to it… I haven’t analyzed it, it might be 9/8, it might have an extra beat on it.
“It’s one of the heavier tracks on the album, I love that it’s got all the guitar-bass unisons, and sprinkles…”
Responding to keyboardist Derek Sherinian’s comment that the song has heavy verses and more of a “poppy” chorus, Mike said:
“It’s a good combination, I think ‘Signs of the Time’ has that as well – a verse that’s very heavy, and then you hit the chorus and it’s really hooky.
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“That’s one of Jeff [Scott Soto]’s strengths. Every one of these songs, no matter how heavy they are, they’re all hummable and have hooks in them.
“This song has a crazy guitar-bass unison. It was originally going to be a bass solo, Billy just improvised it, but then Bumblefoot ended up learning the whole thing and now it’s completely doubled. It’s insane.”