The Whigs

For their fifth album, the Athens-bred/Nashville-based power trio the Whigs wanted to find the exact midpoint between raw and rehearsed. After more than a decade together - during which they've released four critically lauded studio albums and toured constantly as either headliners or openers for the likes of the Drive-By Truckers, Kings of Leon, and MGMT - the three members all agreed that they wanted to flex their muscles a bit: write some good songs, get them down as tight as possible, hit , and tear shit up.

Says Parker Gispert (guitar/vocals): "We wanted to record quickly, and we wanted to record live. That meant we weren't going to write a bunch of songs that relied on a horn line or any outside instrumentation. That guided the composition of the songs and informed how we approached recording them."

For months the trio hammered these songs into shape at their Nashville practice space, united in a shared mission: to perform these songs with as much energy and excitement as possible, to expertly navigate every tricky tempo change, taut groove, spacy tangent, and ebullient hook. Their infamously raucous live show was never far from their minds. "Our practice space actually has about a foot-high stage," says Julian Dorio (drums), "and we set up like we're playing a show. We know we're going to spend a lot of time on the road touring, so it's always more fun to write something that's going to sound exciting live."