The band members at this time included Jon Lauvland Pettersen (drums), Frode Jacobsen (bass), Sivert Høyem (vocals), and Marius 'Wah Wah' Johansen (guitar).

By 1998, the band had been signed to a six-album deal by Virgin Music Norway, and after a chance meeting with Norwegian author and poet Øystein Wingaard Wolf in a bar, changed their name to Madrugada.

Recorded at Sound City in Los Angeles with producer George Drakoulias, it was released on 28 February 2005 in Norway, on 31 March in the rest of Europe, and finally in the US on 11 April.

[1] On 14 December 2005, Madrugada released the album Live at Tralfamadore, (named after the fictional home planet of aliens from several novels by American author Kurt Vonnegut).

The band reconvened in the spring of 2007 with Industrial Silence, Nightly Disease, and Histamin producer John Agnello to begin work on their fifth album, but on 12 July 2007, Robert Burås was found dead in his Oslo apartment; he was 31 years old.

In the spring of 2008, joined by My Midnight Creeps guitarist Alex Kloster-Jensen and friend of the band Cato Thomassen, Madrugada embarked on a tour throughout Europe.