At a point in their career when many mid-2000s British alternative bands are more or less nostalgia acts, shop story The Wombats show no signs of slowing. The Liverpudlian trio’s first album, viagra 60mg The Wombats Proudly Present… A Guide to Love, treatment Loss & Desperation, was very much in line with the post-Strokes indie sound that dominated the UK in the aughts. The band’s riff-happy melodies mixed with frontman Matthew “Murph” Murphy’s playfully cynical, tongue-in-cheek lyrics (best typified on the glorious “Let’s Dance to Joy Division”) made them a huge success, catching fire in the charts and quickly turning them into NME’s newest darlings.

While many of their contemporaries were satisfied to continue following the same guitar-centric approach that brought them to prominence, the band’s second LP, The Wombats Proudly Present… This Modern Glitch, was instead a synth-driven affair. While always staying rooted in the band’s dancey alternative origins, Glitch’s new sonic pallette was divisive among fans. However, keeping their knack for hooks and impressive lyricism, The Wombats put together a fully realized product that soundly bucked the sophomore album slump.

With the release of their third LP, Glitterbug, earlier this year, the band are continuing to push their sound forward. While perhaps lacking as immediate a single as “Techno Fan” or “Kill the Director,” the album hears the boys at their grandest, indulging in an expansive and layered synth sound and punchy guitar work. The trio have touched upon an enjoyable formula that could be equally well received by fans of Passion Pit, The Kooks and New Order.

Coming to the end of a year that has seen their profile on rise considerably stateside, The Wombats are playing the House of Blues tonight, 11/2. We caught up with multi-instrumentalist Dan Haggis before the show, and he told us about the band’s evolving sound, writing tracks long-distance and adapting complicated tracks to a live setting.

Allston Pudding: Glitterbug was written with considerable distance between Murph and the rest of you [Murphy wrote the tracks in LA and sent over ideas for Haggis and third member Tord Øverland Knudsen to flesh out in the UK]. Beyond changing the way you communicated with each other, would you say that the distance affected the recording of the album at all?

Dan Haggis: Yeah, definitely. We had worked similarly in the past but not as much. I think it shook the writing process up a bit for the three of us. Obviously each person could work a little bit more in their own time without having the other guys around constantly, so we could concentrate a bit more on the production side and making the music sound as inspiring as possible. Then Murph could focus on lyrics and melody and making that side of things work. Then we’d all get back together, shuffle things around and finish things off.

Obviously it was very important for us to get into the room together and have that sense of being a band. Have the energy you get from just playing your instruments together. So we did that for quite a few songs and then obviously there were quite a few songs on the album as well where Murph just came with an almost finished song that we’d work on and arrange together. So it was a nice mix of processes that brought the album to life for us.

AP: Your debut was more of a guitar-centric album, while in the second and this one synth work takes center stage. Why did you initially decide to move in the more electronic direction?

DH: Well, after we finished touring the first album it was very… as you say, much more guitar-based, drums, three vocals, a couple of keyboards. Thing is, we like so many different styles of music, and we all play keyboards and other instruments, so it came back to keeping things exciting and never getting too comfortable or bored with making the same songs; the same sounding song over and over again. We just wanted to see if we could push ourselves in a different direction and see what we could come up with as a band. Again, I think the moment, as a musician or as an artist, the moment you get bored with what you’re playing it’s a good idea to put it to one side and pick up an instrument that you don’t really know how to play. Whether it’s a ukulele or a lute or a mandolin, it can really help you come up with something that you wouldn’t otherwise have thought of.

AP: Yeah, I suppose with synths there’s a lot more room to experiment than a lot of other instruments.

DH: Yeah of course. With this album especially we had a lot of [Roland] Juno 60s in our practice room. We also had this little fatty Moog that was next to the computer all of the time. We’d start working on a song, and maybe it would just be guitar-based with drums, but we’d start messing around with some synth stuff, start playing with the filters and the envelopes. Before you know it you find a really cool sound that everyone’s excited about! Then before you know you it you’re off in a different direction, and if you try and take that away it somehow feels less exciting.

We often try, and often come up with, guitar lines and mix the synth line with it as well. It’s a very common thing with music; a lot of bands do it. You go back to the Beach Boys, it was “what is the sound there”? It was a harpsichord mixed with a falsetto vocal mixed with a reverse piano or something. I guess that’s part of the production side of things that we get really excited about.

AP: The previous albums came out with the “The Wombats Proudly Present…” in front of the title. I’m gonna assume you guys are proud of this one- why did you drop the tag?

DH: Yeah, we definitely are proud of it! We’ve had a few people ask us that. Thing is, we literally didn’t think anyone would notice! It was just- the guy who did the artwork for the album did a few versions, and he did one with “The Wombats Proudly Present…” and one without, and with the image that was on there, the more we looked at it, we all agreed it just aesthetically looked better and cleaner and more fitting with the album with as little writing as possible.

But yes, it’s not because we’re not proud of it of course!

AP: There’s a lot going on in the new songs for a three-piece to reproduce live. Are you using touring members?

DH: No, actually! We did have that conversation around the time that we finished recording. When we were making it, we tried not to think about how we would tackle the songs live. We just had a laugh making them, and if it sounded like there were five people playing then so be it; we’d cross that bridge when we came to it.

So when we did come to that bridge we thought we’d probably need to get one, if not two, touring musicians with us. Obviously going on the road for a year and having two extra musicians on stage, we thought… A: It would cost a lot, but B: It would change the dynamics onstage too much.

So went went down and looked into the pieces. Some of them we can keep important parts on a  laptop- “Pink Lemonade” for example is built around programmed drums and other various electronic programming, so we wouldn’t really need another person for tracks like that. We came to the decision that we’d just play with some backing tracks, but keep that as minimal as possible and try and recreate as much as we can live. I think we get pretty close with most of it, but there’s obviously a couple of things we have to keep on the old laptop.

AP: A lot of the British artists I’ve talked to have told me that touring the US is a very different experience from the UK and Europe. Would you agree?

DH: Yeah. Obviously it’s mainly just down to the fact that it’s such a big country. The distances are just so much greater between a lot of the cities. But I think, I guess for us, going back three or four years the main difference was going with tour buses and full production crew around the UK and Europe and Australia, then going to the US and being back in a little van. Driving crazy distances, playing little club rooms and never getting enough sleep. It was really back to basics for us, which was really exciting.

Of course, now the US has really caught up with everywhere else. You know, now I think it’s quite similar for us now. The crowds are really enthusiastic and welcoming. The language is, of course, the same, so it’s really easy to communicate. We just have a really good time.

AP: Speaking of the US catching up, I was looking through the venues you’re playing this tour and they’re significantly larger than the past one. For instance in Boston you’ve gone from a ~900 capacity venue earlier this year [The Paradise] to a ~2400 capacity one [House of Blues]. As a band member, are you particularly conscious of that kind of upswing, or are you more focused on just playing your sets?

DH: The important thing for us is always that wherever we turn up and wherever we play the show, the show is as good as it can be. Obviously it’s very exciting when things feel like they’re moving forward or upwards, and it’s great that more and more people are discovering out albums and our songs; it’s a nice pat on the back, I suppose. But for us the show doesn’t change massively, apart from maybe you feel a bit more nervous the bigger the shows get. Before the show you might need that extra shot of whiskey to get through it!

AP: How have your past experiences playing in Boston been?

DH: Boston shows have been for the best for us. We’ve played Paradise a few times, and those shows have always kicked off. We played in this underground club over in Cambridge- The Middle East! It’s always been fun and scrappy with a great atmosphere.

There’s something about the city, I think. I’ve got a few Irish cousins over there so it’s always nice to meet up with some family. I guess it feels quite similar to being back in the UK really. Closer to home than the West Coast, Califnornia, where we really feel outside our element. I think there are some real similarities between Boston and Liverpool.

AP:What was your favorite gig this year?

DH: I’d probably have to go with a festival we played in Australia called Splendour in the Grass. It was in Byron Bay near a rainforest. We played in this natural amphitheatre with about 20,000 people there and we were on just before Florence and the Machine around 8 atnight with an hour-long set. From the crew to the band, it was one of those gigs where everything went really smoothly. Even though everyone was a bit jetlagged, it was exactly what we’d hoped the gig would be. We all walked off and had fist bumps for a least half an hour afterwards. It was one of those better than sex kind of feelings! Our manager actually shed a tear during a gig. That was a special one: the whole crowd singing along the whole time, all in face paint, covered in mud. Fucking awesome!

The Wombats will be playing House of Blues tonight, 11/23, with openers Royal Teeth and Pop Etc. Tickets are still available here.