Copeland

"I've never been more excited to put out a record and to give the world this music." -- Sherri Dupree-Bemis

Eisley's fourth album, "Currents," is a study in contrasts. It's the sound of a band growing up, but not forgetting the magical power of childlike curiosity or the joy of unselfconscious creativity. It's an album that nods to playful pop and stormy rock, but also gentle electronica and delicate classical. But more than that, "Currents" finds the group forging their own path in the world, but never losing sight of the homegrown heart that's made the band beloved by legions of fans.

For Eisley, that heart is in their hometown of Tyler, Texas. It's where the quintet -- siblings Sherri DuPree-Bemis (vocals/keyboard/guitar), Stacy King (vocals/guitar), Chauntelle DuPree (guitar/vocals) and Weston DuPree (drums), and their cousin Garron DuPree (bass) -- first started playing shows together in the late-'90s, in a coffeehouse owned by their parents. The idyllic town remained their home after Eisley began to grow and evolve: signing with a major label, releasing two albums (2005's "Room Noises" and 2007's "Combinations") and a handful of EPs, and touring with bands such as Coldplay, Mutemath, and Switchfoot. And when the band eventually parted ways with the major and landed on Equal Vision, they released "The Valley" (2011), followed by 2012's "Deep Space" EP, recorded after cobbling together studio spaces in Chauntelle and Sherri's houses.

For "Currents," the band again turned to Tyler: Before recording the album, Eisley constructed a studio in a two-story garage apartment space at the back of Sherri's house. "It's cozy," Stacy says. "It's basically just a room with as many instruments as we could fit in there." Having the flexibility to record this new album at home meant the world to the band on a personal and professional level, not the least because it helped them fulfill a career-long dream: making a record entirely by themselves.

"Just the fact that we self-produced it gave us this endless freedom to try things," Sherri says. "It was just such a relaxing experience being able to come downstairs in your PJs and walk out to the studio and lay down some guitar, lay down a vocal track. I think it made for the most relaxed environment we've ever recorded in." Adds Stacy: "It freed us up creatively a lot to explore and really reach down and figure out who we are as a band, truly, and not try to base it on someone's opinion of what they think it should be, or what would sell great."

"Currents" is indeed unique within Eisley's catalog. Haunted piano, humming keyboards and atmospheric arrangements dotted with knotty electric guitar ("Currents") and bewitching harmonies ("Save My Soul") lend the album a pensive tone, while ornate details -- skittering rhythms and searing bass (the Radioheadlike "Lost Enemies") or rich acoustic guitars ("Millstone") -- add vibrant color. Plus, songs such as the jazz-tinged "Drink The Water," starry-eyed "Find Me Here" and the lacy pop gem "Wicked Child" have sweeping string accents courtesy of Missouri-based musician Jeremy Larson, who's also in Stacy's other band, Sucre. "We sent him the record to mix, and we'd get it back with these amazing string parts," Sherri says. "He wrote all of them and recorded them himself in his studio. We were pretty blown away by them."

Although it's less rock-focused than Eisley's last full-length album, "The Valley," "Currents" is an incredibly visceral listening experience that conjures vivid experiences: a nightmarish Brothers Grimm fairy tale, the romance of a black-and-white movie, the distorted reality of a Tim Burton film, flipping through a stack of sepia-toned photos. "The songs aren't exactly three minutes long for radio," Sherri says. "They're totally still melodic and they have hooks and they're catchy, because that's always what we tend to write. But they're not as poppy, because we're older now and also everyone's branching out and wanting to explore new musical ideas. Everyone's also growing musically. I think that definitely comes through in this record."

This duality -- and growth -- also permeates the album's lyrics. Real-life (specifically, romance and marriage) crop up in songs Stacy wrote, while two of Sherri's songs address a serious bout of insomnia she faced. "There was a whole tour where I was literally sleeping maybe an hour a night, then getting up and driving to shows and playing shows -- for a month straight," she recalls. "It was one of the hardest things I've ever dealt with, physically and mentally." Yet "Currents" also possesses a whimsy-filled streak and a penchant for fantasy that recalls Eisley's full-length debut, "Room Noises"; "Lost Enemies" even comes from a demo song Stacy wrote when she was 15.

"We grew up on a major label, [and] there was more pressure to make our songs lyrically blatant: 'This is the love song.' 'This is the breakup song,'" Sherri says. "On this record, there's a little more open to interpretation as far as what the songs are about. That was cool to get to do again." Still, Eisley are coming at this fantastical material from a more mature perspective. Both Stacy and Sherri particularly praise their bandmates -- especially Garron and Weston -- for their contributions to "Currents." "[They] had a chance to step up for the first time and really got to tap into their brains," Sherri says. "It's been an amazing growing process for the whole band on this record. It really pushed everyone to go further and step out of their boxes."

Outside of the band, the members of Eisley have also grown in many other ways during the last year. Most notably, Stacy, Sherri and Chauntelle had baby girls, while Weston had a son with his wife. Instead of being divisive -- or pushing the band away from music -- parenthood has brought the already close-knit family even closer together.

"At this point, it's like you really have to fight for [the band], in a way, because you have kids and a family, and so if you wanna make it happen, you really have to make the time for it and put in the effort," Stacy says. "Otherwise, it's so easy to let it fade away or something. I'm proud of us in that regard -- that we didn't throw in the towel but pushed harder and tried to do it more independently."

Indeed, with "Currents" it's clear that Eisley have never been more excited about making music, because they've evolved into exactly who they want to be. "We were really young when we got into the industry and were really impressionable and naïve in some ways," Stacy says. "But now it's great. I feel like we're fully grown up. I feel like this time we're just making music that we really love. We're not doing it for any other reason."

Eisley's "Currents" will be released May 28 on Equal Vision Records, just prior to the band's full US summer tour as direct support to Say Anything.