his former band, which they showed no interest in. When he mentioned this to the other members of Finch, they were enthusiastic about potentially signing with the label. Richard offered the band a chance to perform for Drive-Thru Records and subsequently invited his sister, and co-label owner, Stefanie Reines to the performance. The pair were impressed by the performance and signed Finch afterwards, though they did not sign a contract for another 11 months. Pre-production and demos were done at DML Studios in Escondido, California, in February and April 2001. Finch began recording What It Is to Burn in June of that year at Big Fish Studios in Encinitas, California, with producer Mark Trombino. Strohmeyer was a fan of Trombino's production work, while Pappas enjoyed Bleed American (2001) by Jimmy Eat World, which Trombino produced. The Reines' sent Finch's demos to Trombino, who was interested in producing them. The band started tracking guitars for the album in July 2001. Strohmeyer used Fender guitars and Marshall amplifiers, while Linares used ESP guitars and Mesa amplifiers. Trombino with the guitar effects on What It is to Burn. Recording continued throughout 2001, going into August and September. Daryl Palumbo of Glassjaw performs guest vocals on "Grey Matter" and "Project Mayhem". Doherty, Linares and Strohmeyer first met Palumbo at a Deftones show, and later when they played with Earth Crisis, and kept in contact with him. While they were recording for the album, the band asked Palumbo if he wanted to participate, prompting in him flying out to the band. Trombino completed programming before he mixed the recordings at The Robot Factory in Los Angeles, California; Stephen Marcussen mastered the tracks at Marcussen Mastering. Composition and lyrics Musically, What It Is to Burn has been classed as emo, hardcore punk, pop punk and post-hardcore, with sporadic touches of electronic music. The album received comparisons to the music of Glassjaw, New Found Glory, Linkin Park, and Blink-182. Barcalow switches between crooning and screaming on What It Is to Burn; though he has a pop punk-inspired vocal delivery, his screams were compared to the likes of Palumbo and Deftones frontman Chino Moreno. The writing process revolved around Finch jamming. Linares said they could sometimes write a song in two hours, and at other times take a whole day. Collectively, Strohmeyer said it took a year to write all the material on the album, which was done