For the uninitiated, these opening lines of The Callous Daoboys' third studio album are a bit of a headscratcher. What the heck is The Museum of Failure? The mystery voice goes on to explain that we're now 300 years into the future, where we're observing the album tracks as 'artefacts.' As this opening statement ends and we're launched headfirst into the chaotic mathcore of 'Schizophrenia Legacy,' it all becomes clearer. This is all part of the brain-melting, genre-wrangling experience that is The Callous Daoboys: welcome to the mind of main man Carson Pace.

If you're thinking this is all sounding a little 'concept album', you wouldn't be the only one; even Carson was originally thinking concept album. "I was writing a movie based on this premise, then I realised I don't really have any experience writing scripts," he laughs. "Then I thought maybe it would be a concept album, then I realised I don't really like concept albums, they're annoying and eye-rolly."

Carson sees the idea as more of a meta-narrative, and it's through this meta-narrative that he is able to channel his own anxiety and insecurities; 'I Don't Want to See You in Heaven' is the most personal Daoboys work to date.

"I guess it represents other people's idea of success. While I may think that just finishing a record that I'm proud of is a measure of success, others in my life, be it family or people I've dated or whatever, just wonder how much money I make, so no matter what, I feel like a failure. It's not the best thing in the world to feel, so it's a way to express to people, 'Hey, when you talk to me about numbers and how much money I make off a show, or how much it costs to go on tour, I feel like a piece in a museum that people are ogling over."

The Callous Daoboys are a band who exist in a niche, and they're doing quite nicely in that niche. They're often compared to the likes of The Dillinger Escape Plan, Botch or Everytime I Die, but at the same time, they're very much their own thing, creating a manic hybrid of sound that somehow seamlessly transitions between pop hooks, angular time signatures, jazzy interludes, full-on metal breakdowns and back again. It must be jarring then, that they can pack out a tent at a prestigious festival like ArcTanGent with people chanting their name, only for family and friends back home to simply not get it.

Carson is warmly self-deprecating, attempting to play it down by joking and poking fun at himself, but it's clear that it's something he struggles with. "I made a post after ArcTanGent, a video from behind the drum kit showing how big the crowd was and everyone singing along. I know all my family saw it... None of them talked to me about it! To everyone in my life around me, I haven't succeeded or made anything of myself - at least that's what my insecurity is telling me.

"The amount of people in my life who are just like, 'Yeah yeah, that's great, when are you going to get a real job?' That's a through-line in my life, and I'm 28 now, so it's just getting worse, man! But I've got to see it through: we treat every album like it's going to be our last, because if you're not treating it like that, you get complacent. I treat everything like it's dire circumstances: this album has to be good, or I have to go get a day job. I'm making the best album that's going to come out this year, or I'm fucking peacing out!"

While 'I Don't Want to See You in Heaven' is still an experiment in all things musically mind-bending, it's also The Callous Daoboys most accessible record yet. Take 'Two-Headed Trout' for example (part of a double single release that offered the first taster of the album), where the sultry groove of the verse gives way to a full-on pop-punk chorus à la Fall Out Boy, before exploding into a metalcore breakdown and rounding things off with smooth pop melody.

While tracks like 'Lemon' may be a lot easier to replicate in a live setting, the band have certainly tied themselves up in knots before when trying to translate tracks for an audience. In fact, Carson explains that this is probably the first time they've actually considered their live show when writing.

"There was a song on the last record called 'The Elephant Man in the Room' that we thought was so awesome, we thought it was going to be our biggest song. You know how many times we've played it live? Like five! We did it, and it just went over so poorly! When I say poorly, I mean we put our all into perfecting that song and making sure it could work live, and it just didn't. We got a little lost in the sauce.

On a certain level, that sense of 'what the fuck is happening?' when listening to The Callous Daoboys is what makes them so appealing. A lot of elements to the band are very tongue-in-cheek, particularly when it comes to song titles. 'Douchebag Safari' and 'Idiot Temptation Force' are two standouts on this record, but previously we've had the likes of the aforementioned 'The Elephant Man in the Room', 'Flip-Flops at a Funeral' and 'Cobra Winfrey' to name but a few. Outside of the meta-narrative of 'The Museum of Failure,' there's a lot more of the personal to unpack on 'I Don't Want to See You in Heaven.' Many of the tracks address the personal turmoil Carson suffered over several years, subjects which are pretty disparate to the sense of chaotic fun the Daoboys project.

When pointed out that some of the press release pre-amble mentions that this album chooses the personal rather than the political, Carson dryly jokes, "I picked a good time to do that didn't I?" Though there's currently a whirlwind of subject matter for a politically leaning record, it simply wasn't what was on Carson's heart and mind.

"I love our political songs and very much still stand for things politically, but this is more of a snapshot of my life from ages 24-27. There was so much insane shit going on personally that I didn't really have any time to think about QAnon! It was brutal." He goes on to list a number of things he went through that would be enough to break anyone: relationships failing, his parents divorcing, his brother (and best friend) moving away, kicking out band members, and all while trying to get sober from alcohol and cocaine. Why he felt the need to create 'The Museum of Failure' is now starting to make sense: you could perceive it as a detached way to process all these traumatic experiences.

Carson sums it up in true self-deprecating style. "I was venting on the phone to a friend who is something of a musical hero to me, someone I very much admire. He pointed out, 'Dude, you have so much content, you don't need lyrics for years', so I guess at least I have the largest amount of lyrical content I've ever had in my life!"