Front man Austin Getz doesn't blink when asked to sum up Turnover's third full-length, Good Nature. "Learning," he replies. "This whole record is about learning. Opening your eyes to new things, going outside of your comfort zone, and learning to grow into something new."

Turnover's previous full-length, 2015's Peripheral Vision, won acclaim for showcasing a dreamier side of the band's melodically-charged sound; Billboard noted that "the quartet has morphed into a moody, atmospheric indie rock band, without losing its knack for hooks." As easy as it might have been to replicate that success for its third album, the band resisted the urge to play it safe.

"It can be hard to be honest with yourself sometimes when it comes to creativity," Austin admits. Excited by the opportunities for personal and creative growth the band experienced in the wake of Peripheral Vision, they worked hard to strike a balance for its follow-up, "writing good songs but pushing boundaries, without getting strange just for the sake of being strange."

As the range of textures, tempos, and dynamics on Good Nature hints, the members of Turnover have been listening to a wider range of musical styles over the past couple years. Vintage Southern soul and blues, Bossa nova and cool jazz, electronic music, and psychedelic grooves all filtered into the mix.

"The new record definitely has a different rhythmic feel because of that," he observes. "The melodies we wrote for this record are very different, much less linear. They're much more soulful and move around a lot."

Listening to how the leisurely "Nightlight Girl" melts into a more propulsive selection like "Breeze," and the way Good Nature flows together as a seamless whole, it's also evident that the foursome has been paying closer attention to how artists from earlier eras made full-length albums. "The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds has become one of my top five favorites of all time," says Austin, citing not only the quality of the individual selections, but also the careful sequencing and use of space in the arrangements.

"I read a huge article on Frank Ocean toward the end of writing Good Nature, talking about taking his time on his records and being patient with the process, and that really inspired me, too."

At the same time Austin and his cohorts were opening up their ears, they were opening up their understanding of themselves too: "A big chunk of the record is learning to be happy." Not full-throttle exuberance, but something much more subtle and satisfying. The almost beatific radiance that imbues Good Nature comes from a place of calm and contentment, nurtured by looking inward.

"Peripheral Vision was mostly a record about feeling emptiness and not knowing what to do. This one is about the steps I took after feeling those things, and where those steps took me, and learning to try to love the emptiness."

The album's unique blend of musical and spiritual growth is immediately audible on the opening track, "Super Natural," a late-summer idyll of intertwined guitar parts and laidback vocals. "More than anything else, love has the ability to teach people selflessness," says Austin. "That song is specifically about just one type of love, romantic love, and how it became almost meditative for me. It made me feel so relaxed, but at the same time I could feel it was something so big … it's 'super natural' and it's 'supernatural.'"

From the flora and fauna that adorn its cover, to song titles like "Butterfly Dream" and "Sunshine Type," the natural world also plays a pivotal role in Turnover's latest. "Nature is a huge theme, because nature has been the teacher in my life when it comes to many things."

To record Good Nature, Turnover reunited with longtime producer Will Yip. Together, they spent more time in the studio than on any previous Turnover record, devoting hours of pre-production to methodically going through the new songs, fine-tuning parts and writing additional melodies. The bulk of the lyrics, however, were finalized during the band's 2016 European tour. "That was a beautiful atmosphere to be doing it in – and the most intense experience I've ever had as a writer."

Turnover formed in 2009 in Virginia Beach, VA and has gone on to tour extensively throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Japan. Their discography includes three full-length albums and countless EPs and split-singles, including last year's Humblest Pleasures EP. "It's really cool to see all the change, from the first songs we ever wrote, right up to Good Nature," concludes Austin. Eight years into their career, Turnover sound better than ever. Slip on your headphones, open up your ears, and learn for yourself what the excitement is all about.

Making yourself vulnerable isn’t easy but it often makes for lasting art and that is certainly true of Tigers Jaw’s fifth full-length, spin. The album marks a new chapter for the Scranton, Pennsylvania-based indie rock band for many reasons: Not only is it the first collection of songs that was completely written and recorded solely by Ben Walsh and Brianna Collins, but it was also the first time they had a full month in the studio without having to worry about outside responsibilities. Furthermore it’s the inaugural release on Atlantic Records’ new imprint Black Cement, a label spearheaded by the band’s longtime collaborator Will Yip who returned to the production helm for spin. 

All of these factors converged to create an album that sounds more fully formed than anything Tigers Jaw have done in the past and simultaneously establishes them as a band whose appeal truly transcends genres. While Walsh initially encouraged Collins to start singing lead vocals and songwriting with 2014’s Charmer, the duo’s collective output on spin is a collaboration in the truest sense of a creative partnership. “In a lot of ways this record is a return to the way the band started in the sense that it was coming from two people working very closely together and I think that resulted in something that was really cohesive,” Walsh explains. “The whole experience felt really organic even if the recording process was different than anything we had done in the past together.” 

While Tigers Jaw’s previous four albums were recorded on tight deadlines and even tighter budgets, for spin the band would record six days a week for 10 hours a day over the course of an entire month — and while the band didn’t think they’d ever need that much time, ultimately they ended up utilizing every minute. “Having all of that extra time allowed us to track everything song by song to give each individual track its own unique focus,” Walsh explains. “It allowed for the freedom to play around with different ideas rather than keeping things tied to the way we wrote the demos; the performances, tones and structures were really tailored to each individual track which gave us so much room to play around and experiment together.” 

From the sweetly syncopated, fuzzed-out bliss of the opener “Follows” to the midtempo melodicism of “June” and liltingly lovely ballad “Bullet,” spin sees Tigers Jaw stretching out sonically and correspondingly Yip was the perfect person to encourage the duo to approach things in a different way than they would have initially conceived. “Will is great at understanding what you want to get out of a song and pushing you to achieve that,” Collins explains when asked about Yip’s role “He had ideas especially about song structures that I might not have thought of and we had enough time in the studio to fully explore a lot of those ideas and see how they turned out. He didn’t try to change the way we wanted the songs to sound but he allowed us to step outside of our comfort zone.” 

Tigers Jaw have always been known for their incredibly relatable lyrics and for this album Walsh tried something new: He experimented with stream-of-consciousness writing as a way to get his ideas out of his subconscious in an unfiltered fashion. “The lyrics I wrote for spin are very personal in the sense that there’s a lot of material relating to mental wellness, coming to terms with getting older and pursuing something creative like this band even though that might not be the conventional path for someone my age,” he explains. The album also sees Collins taking a shine to writing duties whether she’s writing a love song like “Same Stone” or getting introspective on the dreamy sounding “Brass Ring.” 

Ultimately though, there isn’t much distinction between Walsh and Collins on spin in the sense that the two of them come together to form a collective whole — and not only do their styles perfectly complement each other, but at times their vocals are so in sync that it’s difficult to tell where one person’s voice ends and the other’s begins. “The two of us worked together so closely on this record especially when it came to layering our harmonies and I think along with open guitar chords and Casiotone organs, that’s what really makes this album sound like us,” Collins summarizes. “We needed to do what felt like Tigers Jaw — and I think we were able to do that in a really exciting way this time around.”