Keith Murray is somewhere in Holland: “I want to say we’re in Utrecht but that’s just an educated guess.” The grueling tour schedule of We Are Scientists may be taking its toll, but they are enjoying playing material from their new album, Brain Thrust Mastery, a big improvement since their major label debut, With Love and Squalor. “I feel like the last album had a sort of ephemeral charm to it,” Murray says. He describes With Love and Squalor as a dancey, up-tempo album that was made to get attention as quickly as possible when performed live. “We sort of got fatigued with that philosophy of song writing.”

The new album shares a name with a faux series of self-help lectures that Murray and bassist Chris Cain held at British universities, but Murray insists there is no connection between the two. “It’s a very grand sounding title that can indicate a lot of potent information but actually is sort of totally vacant of any real meaning.” Proving they aren’t lacking in humor, the album title is a jab at self-help programs like Tony Robbins’ “Personal Power” and a funny ode to “idiotically profound-sounding titles that a lot of bands give their albums.” Murray likes the album because it’s poppier and has a ’80s influence, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate where their sound is headed. “I think we were more focused on trying to keep the moods shifting and to not be as single-minded as [on] the last record.”

- Janine Rizak