Three years ago, Solid Gold was Minneapolis' "it" band. The dreamy electro-rock trio's debut album, "Bodies of Water," was simmering. National media and industry folk were taking notice, and locally there was an air of "next big thing" around them.
But then the band turned relatively quiet. Sure, there was 2010's "Synchronize" EP, but that year frontman Zach Coulter and guitarist Adam Hurlburt broke to play in Gayngs, and by 2011 it was starting to feel like the local darlings had hit the snooze bar on their anticipated sophomore LP.
Spurning the strike-while-the-iron's-hot adage, Solid Gold wasn't about to let the hype machine dictate when and how album No. 2 would unfurl. "If that was the only thing important to us we probably would've acted differently," said Coulter. "The fact that people like the music is amazing, the response was amazing. That will always be awesome for us. But at the same time we had to not pay that much attention to it."
Their follow-up, "Eat Your Young," finally arrived in October -- four years after "Bodies of Water." A First Avenue gig on Friday coincides with its vinyl release.
Don't mistake the lag time for lack of ambition. The new record hits on headier arrangements than its predecessor, stitched and layered with nuance and studio meticulousness. Without a label boss breathing down their necks, the band members' self-imposed soft deadlines gave way to nitpicking. "We had set a deadline of a spring release and we got our mixes in March and we all had a meltdown, because we were like, 'Is this really done?'" multi-instrumentalist Matt Locher said, sitting in the cozy studio beneath Coulter's northeast Minneapolis home.
This time around, the dance-rock thrusters are mostly at half-throttle, shedding some of the "sugary pop" elements (as Locher put it) to delve deeper into the band's cerebral side. The wavy synth-psych number "All the Way Until It Stops" marks the album's trippiest terrain, feeling like a synthesized Flaming Lips acid ballad, while the lush lead single "The Pendulum" falls into Solid Gold's grandiose electro-pop wheelhouse.
Clearly, the Minneapolis favorites have been reinvigorated by a more complex, synth-stunned new record and a live lineup that includes local vets Jake and Jeremy Hanson on guitar and drums, respectively. Never mind that it took them a while to open the band's next chapter.
"Some bands are really prolific," Locher said. "The Black Keys for instance, they could probably put out three records a year, [but] it's more like a collection of songs. Rather than someone like Meat Loaf, who is just going to put out one record every 25 years and it's like an opera."
