The first track says it all: "Let's Not Lose Our Heads" is a perfect description of how Morningbell and its fans have been feeling over the past two years.
The band has gone through a long journey to come out with its fourth album, "Sincerely, Severely." And fans have been on edge with anticipation.
The band is playing a CD release show Friday at Common Grounds with the Shitty Beatles and Michael Claytor and His Friends.
Tickets can be purchased on Common Grounds' Web site for $6, and doors will open at 9 p.m. To award fans for their patience, the album will be available for $5 at the show.
However, those who follow them on MySpace, Facebook or Twitter can get the CD for free if they follow the instructions.
The album was originally supposed to be released in March in time for the band's summer tour.
According to lead vocalist Travis Atria, the band was striving to get it done by then but just couldn't make it in time.
"After the last album, I think we weren't really kind of sure what we wanted to do, and it just took a long time to just write this one," Atria said.
"I probably wrote 60 songs for this album, and most of them we just threw away because they weren't any good, or we didn't think they were any good."
While most bands usually release an album and then go on tour, Morningbell has never been able to do this.
Atria said they have a short tour planned for November, but it won't be anything like the tour from this past summer, which was through 21 states.
Despite not doing the normal CD-tour combination, Atria said he is just happy with how the album turned out. With influences from the late '60s to the early '70s and musicians like Curtis Mayfield and Ike and Tina Turner, he said that their new sound is a little bit more upbeat than the previous albums.
"We fought quite a bit about all these songs, but maybe that is why it turned out so well because the ideas really had to survive the process of arguing over them in order to make the final cut," Atria said.
"I think our other albums were kind of cerebral; there wasn't a lot of emotion in them. This one I wanted to be a little more physical and immediate."
And from what he saw on tour, he said fans were well receptive to the new songs.
"I think this is our strongest effort, and the reaction we got from the crowd when we were on tour was the most passionate fan reaction we have had," Atria said.
While most bands break up more than they create new records, completing a fourth album is an accomplishment within itself.
Atria has enjoyed the success but said it doesn't really make sense how they are where they stand today.
His brother Eric Atria, however, who is also a guitarist in the band, claimed the answer to their fame was blood.
"The secret to being in a longtime successful band is to be related to everybody," he said.
"[Travis] is my brother and [Stacie] is my wife. We are on our sixth drummer, but if we were four random strangers we would have broken up years ago."
And if that happened, the Gainesville music scene would just not be the same.
