Count It All as Lost

Drummer Matt Greiner told Antiquiet that this was the most challenging track to write drums to on Rescue & Restore. "The song is relentless!," he said. "The song opens up with this big introduction that pulls you in and keeps you on your toes. Through a series of twists and turns, the linear writing leads you to a guitar riff that I compliment with the bells on my drum-set, which I use sparingly on our records. The very next part has the fastest blast beat I've ever played on any ABR record. It took me at least two hours to get the drums right for just that ten-second part. I am happy we chose to keep it as fast as we did though because it sets the song up well for the 'whiny' breakdown that follows." "All in all, 'Count It All As Lost' is one of my favorite songs on the record," he continued. "The song is very linear in fashion and takes you through a windy road of sounds and styles before arriving at the end where you are somehow still banging your head and smiling at the same time!"

Greiner told Antiquiet that writing lyrics for the song was an extensive process. "I first put pen to paper for this song in early 2012 on a tour in Europe," he explained. "I was having a hard time dealing with the high standard I set for myself. I found that whenever I lived up to my own moral standards, I became self-righteous and inflated. On the contrary, whenever I failed to meet my high standards of morality, I felt like throwing myself off of a bridge!" "The Bible has a very helpful depiction of this 'up and down' relationship many of us have with being better or worse than our own expectations," Greiner continued. "Paul, the New Testament writer, addresses this issue in Philippians 3:8 where he says, 'I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ.' He writes this amazing truth after listing all of his exceptional moral accomplishments, showing us that even the very best we can do is still crumbs compared to the worth and value in knowing Jesus."

August Burns Red Guitarist JB Brubaker commented to The Alternative Press on the difficulties of playing this song: "When it comes to technical musicianship, this is about as technical as we get," he said. "This song is freaking hard to play and is all over the place musically. Like 'Treatment,' 'Count It All As Lost' is structured in an extremely linear fashion and is a roller coaster from start to finish. There's a neat little Latin-esque clean section thrown in, and the song ends with the hardest guitar lick on the album."