Whatever your expectations might be for the new trio Sun and Sail Club — which is comprised of guitarist/vocalist Bob Balch (Fu Manchu), drummer Scott Reeder (also Fu Manchu) and bassist/recording engineer Scott Thomas Reeder (Kyuss/The Obsessed) — chances are the finished product of their debut album, Mannequin, will offer some level of surprise when it’s released early in November. The 31-minute first outing from the Balch-led outfit was constructed over a period of at least two years, as riffs began to pile up as a result of Balch taking inspiration from his work with PlayThisRiff.com, interviewing the likes of Death Angel and The Red Chord and beginning to reach beyond the sphere of what might even at their most expansive fit with Fu Manchu, whose riff-grooving aesthetic leaves room for periods of showing off their SoCal punk roots, but has essentially been set over the course of their 25-plus years.

And whether it’s the progressive ambience of “I’m Not Upside Down,” which is marked by Reeder‘s starts and stops on bass and atmospheric vocals, or on the more metallic “Whites of Your Eyes,” Mannequin immediately demonstrates that it’s well justified sonically as being separate from Balch‘s main group. What began as experiments in guitar technique and a drive on Balch‘s part to explore his instrument even as he continued to teach others how to better their own playing and interview other players for PlayThisRiff leaves a much different impression, parts like the opening “Lagrimas de Dios,” centerpiece “La Muerte de un Planeta” and closing “La Risa de Satanas” honing on solo-jazz composition while the use of vocoder on all vocals save for Reeder‘s on “I’m Not Upside Down” lends an experimental air to the album overall, also serving as a major uniting factor for the otherwise richly diverse material, ranging from thrash to more intricate and precise heavy metal.

It had been Balch‘s intent to hire out vocals for Sun and Sail Club initially — he likens the original idea to what Dave Grohl did with Probot, sending it out to different singers — but after laying down the original vocoder ideas in the studio with Reeder, who was not yet in the band, which was just the duo of Balch and the drumming Reeder (I know it’s confusing; there are two Scott Reeders, one on drums, one on bass; imagine how they feel), the decision was made to keep the vocoder parts. After the guitar and drums were on tape at Reeder‘s The Sanctuary studio, Reeder asked Balch who was playing bass and wound up taking the job himself, chipping away at the material over a series of months and sending the finished tracks to Balch in a process that the guitarist says made every week “like Christmas.”

In the interview that follows — the first for the new project — Balch discusses that recording situation and how Sun and Sail Club came to be from the ether of unplaced riffs exchanged between himself and his drummer, the possibility of doing live shows, how Sun and Sail Club, Fu Manchu and PlayThisRiff all tie together for him, a potential vinyl release for Mannequin and much more. The album is expected in early November through Satin Records.

The complete Q&A with Balch follows the jump. Please enjoy:

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