Two themes run consistently through CRIMES OF PASSION the eighth album from BIG HEAD TODD AND THE MONSTERS--a love of rock and roll and the need to tell compelling, human stories.

The juxtaposition of riff-driven rockers against melodic ballads and diversity of styles from folk to funk reflects the band's career-long embrace of all types of music, while staying deeply rooted in rock and roll. MOHR's wide-ranging songwriting has always been seamless because the other two corners of the creative BHTM triad--bassist ROB SQUIRES and drummer BRIAN NEVIN--have an intuitive understanding of the music playing in MOHR's head. And they should. After all, the trio's played together since attending Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, and forming BHTM in the late-1980s when they were students at the University of Colorado.

In those early days when the group was just starting to write their own songs (they were already well-known for their unpredictable palette of soul, blues and Johnny Cash covers as they were for their own original music), the band forged a lasting friendship that has endured and grown stronger.