Standout Track: No. 5, “Silver Spring.” Greenland likes to pay tribute to The Replacements, and here it looks to a hallmark of that band’s (and many others’) 1980s sound: the chorus effect, which transforms the track with a ricocheting lead guitar part. In the final minute, distortion and a blasting saxophone swell into a Montgomery County apocalypse.
Musical Motivation: Impatience. The band originally recorded the skeletons of Evil Spring’s nine songs sometime in 2010. But singer Jamie Green lost the hard drive the tracks were on, and the band abandoned them. Two years later, Green found the hard drive, “which is kind of embarrassing,” he says. The band decided to set a one-month deadline for completing what would become its fourth album. “It was just an impatience, because we hadn’t put anything out in forever,” Green says, “and it’s got to be put out during the spring, because it’s Evil Spring, obviously.”
Freedom of Screech: Like “Silver Spring,” Evil Spring bounces all over the place—and that’s because of the atypical autonomy the band had while making it. “This is the first one we recorded ourselves,” Green says. “I think that frees us a little bit. ‘Cause we could just come up with ideas whenever we want. We’re not on the clock.” The record’s chaotic diversity of sounds came from “a lot of putting stuff on top and seeing if it worked,” he says. “There’s no overarching design, but it all kind of makes sense anyway, because it’s all our ideas.”
Listen to "Silver Spring" after the jump.