Appleseed Cast.

LET'S BE HONEST. The majority of music over the past few years, from the realm of the corporate and independent worlds alike, has become stale, much of it either straining to recapture the past glory of previous pioneers, while another sizable portion yap greedily at the tall of whatever current fad is deemed "it."

Ironically, there is more mainstream exposure than ever on music that hails from underground circles, even with much of the boundary-pushing spirit gone the way of the dodo. Therefore, in an effort to cash in on the media-fueled frenzy, and with the possibility of a Gap or iTunes payday not too far in the distance, many once-strident music-for-music's-sake artists have avoided standard musical evolutions in favor of the much easier path of the gravy train, which, admittedly, beats the 9-to-5 grind.

Yet in the process of such a paradigm shift, much of the spirit of music has been saturated, leaving many dedicated fans scouring for something fresh and unfettered, something with a weathered past and a story to tell. To be sure, there will always be bands out there acting as diamond-cutters, slicing through the friendly but often unchallenging musical landscape, chiseling their own imprint via an ever-evolving journey of musical expansion.

The Lawrence, Kansas-based Appleseed Cast, champions of experimentation and harnessers of mesmerizing melody and rock-laden beauty, has spent the past several years crafting its own wondrous and often arduous odyssey that could make Homer himself envious.

But Interstate excursions are not the only highways that Appleseed Cast has traveled. As vocalist and guitarist Cris Crisci indicates, the primary artistic trek begins at the blueprint level, which can be both frustrating and enlightening. "You just play what you feel, and play what fits your mood," the soft-spoken, multi-talented instrumentalist notes. "You start with a basic feeling and then you want to make it more complex. Is there happiness mixed with sadness? Is there some sort of conflict or juxtaposition? Then you step back from it and ask, on a musical level, 'What does the song want?'"

It is precisely songwriting intuition like this that has brought the Appleseed Cast a steady shower of admiration and acclaim since its inception in 1997. Originally carving its way into the music radar via some excellent late '90s releases on Deep Elm Records, Appleseed Cast especially wowed those in the know with a monumental blitzkrieg of musical dexterity and bristling emotion contained with its 2001 dual Low Level Owl LPs. From then on the band solidified its reputation as a forerunner in independent rock with its visceral live shows, along with a heart wrenching 2003 Tiger Style Records follow-up, Two Conversations.

In the meantime, the band has hunkered down in its Midwestern abode and, again, tried to best itself with another record, which has proved to be quite the challenge, being that the expectations are sky high. Guitarist Aaron Pillar, however, views the break as an invigorating splash of water, just before the tide pulls him and his musical brethren along for another adventure.

"I grew up in Los Angeles and I feel like moving to the Midwest gives you more time to breathe and relax," Pillar says. "You can spend a lot more time on music."

And that's just what the Appleseed Cast did during the writing and recording process of what might be the most anticipated release of the group's career thus far.

Crafted in basement writing sessions before being fine-tuned with producer John Congleton (Explosions in the Sky, Modest Mouse), Peregrine (Militia Group), the group's brand new sonic soiree, is an amalgam of everything typical of the band's past--blazing creativity, ambitious themes and concepts, and stirring atmospheres--with an even broader scope in terms of striving for new levels of achievement.

"The main thing I wanted to do with Peregrine was to create some moments," Crisci says. "I felt our last record was a little too part to part, without any kind of standout moment during the process of a song.

I think we achieved creating moments on Peregrine There's no song on it that isn't changing from beginning to end; there are crescendos intensity, our best album to date, and I feel like we've had an awakening."