Bombadil

"We're just jaded and old and cynical and it's all downhill from here," says guitarist Bombadil Bryan Rahija with a big laugh. He's joking, of course, about Bombadil's future prospects. The band—made up of Rahija, Daniel Michalak, James Phillips and Stuart Robinson—got their start after some members met as undergrads at Duke University. After some initial experimentation, the guys landed at an exuberant, orchestral, gypsy folk-rock that has made the band an evolving force since their aptly titled debut record, A Buzz, A Buzz, was released in 2008. Tarpits and Canyonlands, the 2009 follow-up, expanded on the promise of their debut with a flood of harmonies, rhythmic bursts and farther-flung international influences.

After a hiatus for health problems, the band's only recently returned from laying down the tracks for an as yet untitled new album. Recording in a "great big wooden barn" in Portland, Ore., that drummer Phillips found for them, the guys hunkered down to produce their music for the first time, a decision made based for cost and "for the challenge of it," says Rahija.

"[The barn]'s also the place where The Decemberists recorded their last record," he explains. "Colin Meloy had left a copy of Harvest hanging from a nail on this beam in the middle of the room. I felt like every once in a while I'd get to some kind if impasse in the studio, and I'd just kind of look over at that copy of Harvest and think, 'What would those guys do?'"

The payoff of that Meloy-and-Young barn voodoo seems to be a more mature sound, with a focus on the sort of slower songs that went sidelined on previous efforts. But don't go thinking the boys of Bombadil have lost their edge. "I think we're still inspired by the same kind of music or the same spirit of music, but it might be slightly different," says Rahija. "Recording is a lot of work and sweat and is fraught with detail and uphill battles. The end result's usually fun, but getting there is just tiring sometimes. The live show's a chance to just walk up on stage and do your thing." —Ashley Melzer