New Zealand band The Phoenix Foundation has an image, it is probably best defined as relaxed, though not quite dishevelled.
Boasting an assortment of beards and hair sometimes combed to the side, its six members seemingly only take notice of the current fashions in music - short, sharp, dispensable - in order to rail against such trends.
The Wellington-based outfit's new release, Fandango, is a good example of a couldn't-care-less attitude. Don't be fooled by its track listing, a relatively standard 12 songs. This is a double album stretching 78 minutes, including a closing song that, at almost 18 minutes, is six-times longer than the pop standard.
But let's rewind a little.
The years following the release of 2010 effort Buffalo, which earned The Phoenix Foundation a Recording Industry Association of New Zealand (Tui) award for best group the same year, have been fruitful.
On Buffalo's release, the group signed to UK label Memphis Industries and has since toured Britain and Europe regularly, including appearing at the 2011 Glastonbury Festival, performing on Later With Jools Holland the same year.
In a few days time, lead vocalists/guitarists Samuel Flynn Scott and Lukas Buda, Conrad Wedde (guitars, keyboards), Tom Callwood (bass, vocals), Will Ricketts (percussion, keyboards) and new drummer Chris O'Connor will be back in Europe for another extensive round of concerts lasting most of May before they return to New Zealand, where they plan to tour in July.
''The time between Buffalo and this release has been ... I don't know what the word is ... it's been a real stretching of what we are as a band,'' Scott says via phone earlier this week from Wellington, where most of the band members live and play.
''I feel good to be putting out a record after doing all that work and knowing there will be people in various parts of the world that may be listening to what we are doing.''
The Phoenix Foundation's fifth album might push boundaries in terms of song length but Fandango still manages to contain more than a few echoes of earlier releases, from 2003 full-length debut Horsepower, 2005's Pegasus, 2007 effort Happy Ending and 2010's Buffalo.
On the journey between the rhythmic repetition of opener Black Mould (on which suburban bathrooms and existence are dissected) and the behemoth closing track Friendly Society, The Phoenix Foundation members explore various corners of rock music, from prog to psychedelia to melancholic folk and ethereal pop.
''I think the record contains all our approaches,'' Scott says.
''I feel like there is pop, intense psychedelia, really mellow bits, more upbeat bits. There are more synths and lots of guitars. Because it is stretched over two records and 80 minutes, we had more time to explore our moods.
''I think at this stage of our career, we are actually trying to reinvent ourselves, but you just end up sounding like yourself. If you're not being too self-conscious you are going to make music that naturally sounds like the band.
''There was no great idea going into it, that's for sure. There are a lot of songs that we thought would make it on to the album that haven't. There are other songs that we started halfway through the process that just seemed to fit,'' Scott says.
As for the album's length, well, that was entirely accidental.
''The thing is, we ended up with one song, Friendly Society, which was the result of an intense take late one night. We finished it and thought it felt like something special. We thought it might just be something we all love, that we'd put in our own iTunes libraries and listen to occasionally to recall that one night. But we felt like we had to put it on.
''And when we did make that decision, it opened up the idea of turning it into a double album of two 40-minute records, including a couple of other tracks that made a bit more sense.
''Friendly Society seems to be the divisive track on the album. About 30% of reviews have said it's the best thing on the record; the other 70% have said it's the worst. It just goes to show you might as well make the music you want to make because you never know how people are going to respond.''
The results of Fandango suggest Scott and company walk a fine line between loose practice-room jams and more honed compositions. As if to confirm, the songwriter says a collaborative approach is ingrained in The Phoenix Foundation's psyche.
''The real detailed stuff comes largely from Luke and Conrad. Both those guys are quite intense about arrangements. They are really into soundtrack stuff, whereas I'm more a guitar band kind of guy, though I love that music, too.
''Quite often, we'll start work on a simple song and, slowly, more details will be added or a door will appear that will take the song in another direction.
''And that's what makes The Phoenix Foundation differ from all the other projects we are involved in. It's the sound of, say, one of my songs having a section added by Conrad or Luke adding a great melody; or Conrad having this interesting compositional idea and me then singing a melody over the top that makes it sound like a simple song.''
Recorded at four studios over a 15-month period with two different drummers (Richie Singleton left the band to be replaced relatively late in the piece by O'Connor), Fandango also has a Dunedin connection.
''Conrad lives in Dunedin most of the time because his partner is a lecturer down there. One song, Corale, started in Dunedin and there are overdubs that were done in Dunedin that are on a bunch of tracks,'' Scott explains.
''We spent a long time mixing. We had to because parts of some of the songs had been recorded in different studios so we had to make them sound cohesive. Lee Prebble did a pretty amazing job out of some fairly disparate situations.''
Various studio locations notwithstanding, it was the arrival of a new drummer that provided the greatest change in dynamics in the recording process.
''I think getting Chris on board gave us some motivation to finish the record. We were fumbling a bit at that stage. We decided we'd get the tracks 90% finished and get Chris in to replace drum machines. He came and spent four days recording with us. It went so well and he played awesomely,'' Scott says.
''We were listening to a lot of stuff by Michael Rother, who was in Kraftwerk and Neu! and had great solo records as well. His approach really seeped into what we were doing, even though we don't really sound like Kraut-rock.
''I guess Chris' approach was informed by the fact we'd done most of the work to fairly simple drum machine beats that were mostly programmed by Luke.
''We are pretty excited about doing some more recording now we have Chris in the band.''
Hear them
The Phoenix Foundation's Fandango is out now.
