With a history of anxious, acrobatic rock music (see: Dismemberment Plan), the D.C. region seems like the only place on Earth that could have birthed a band as squirrely as Two Inch Astronaut. But six years after its debut, Slip Disco, the young trio has become harder to place on a timeline of D.C. rock.

Two Inch Astronaut is one of D.C.’s most prolific and evolving rock bands, playing loads of local gigs and constantly tweaking its sound — and the fruits of their labor are found on February’s Personal Life, their most refined album yet.

Don’t think “refined” equates to “tame,” however. On Personal Life, Two Inch Astronaut sounds just as brainy and wacked out as ever.

Watch Two Inch Astronaut rock “Personal Life” (above) and “At Risk Student” (below) live for Bandwidth.

Subscribe to Bandwidth’s channel on YouTube, and don’t miss our awesome playlist of every Bandwidth session to date.

All photos by Rhiannon Newman

BOOMscat at the WeDC showcase:

Go Cozy at the WeDC showcase:

RDGLDGRN at Monster Energy Outbreak House:

Tabi Bonney at the WeDC showcase:

Two Inch Astronaut at Stereogum/Exploding In Sound showcase at Hole In The Wall:

Young Rapids at the WeDC showcase:

All photos by Cassandra Mullinix

But the new album from this rough-hewn, ‘90s-influenced troupe — Personal Life, out Feb. 5 on Exploding In Sound — takes a chance on the mundane.

“A lot of this album is a little weird, because it’s sort of about the smaller moments as opposed to big, epic or romantic topics, like break-up songs,” says guitarist and vocalist Sam Rosenberg. “It’s more about, like, different jobs that I’ve had, or just little things like that — like walking to 7-11 to go get Cheez-Its.”

After some personnel shakeups and shifts in sound, Two Inch Astronaut — named after the phenomenon of an astronaut’s spine lengthening about two inches in space — has taken a decidedly down-to-earth approach.

But that doesn’t mean the group, which has become one of the D.C. region’s most promising bands, is thinking small. What started as an acoustic guitar and cello duo is now a full-fledged rock trio, composed of Rosenberg, bassist Andy Chervenak and drummer/vocalist Matt Gatwood. And now, they’re using a studio. A real one.

A whirlwind weeklong recording session with J. Robbins at his Baltimore studio, Magpie Cage, produced Personal Life. Previously, the trio had messed around in a friend’s “makeshift basement studio,” Rosenberg says. This new approach, though intense, came with some surprising benefits — like barring the band from overtinkering with its songs.

“We were just totally immersed in [the recording] for a week, and you’re done before you have a chance to get sick of it,” Rosenberg says. With more time to mess around, he adds, it’s too easy to lose perspective. “Before long, nothing sounds like anything.”

The band’s creative process has also changed. Previously, Rosenberg would bring skeletal demos to the band, who would work together to flesh them out through practice. This time, they worked more collaboratively, writing songs together and taking some of the pressure (and spotlight) off Rosenberg, who also writes songs under the name Mattress Financial.

Feb. 7, Two Inch Astronaut celebrates the release of Personal Life at D.C.’s Black Cat. It’ll be the latest in many local shows over the years; Two Inch keeps its calendar packed. But still, Rosenberg is leaving his mind open about what could happen. The vibe could depend on the day, the band’s state of mind, the weather.

“As many shows as we’ve played,” Rosenberg says, “as soon as I think, ‘All right, I’ve kind of got an idea of what this is like, how this is gonna go,’ the next show is just completely different.”

Two Inch Astronaut plays Feb. 7 at Black Cat with Hemlines and Laughing Man. Listen to Personal Life, below.

“Good Behavior” leads the record with a snappy, twisted pop song. Sam Rosenberg’s knotty guitar work continues to evolve, as a Pixies-like sense of melody lurks the background, and he works nicely in tandem with new member Andy Chervenak (Grass Is Green), the bassist and co-vocalist who’s boosted the musicianship of the already talented trio. But Rosenberg has also finally come into his own as a singer. Here, he plays with the shapes of words as he circles around the melody and sells and yells the hell out of his dejection: “Good behavior cannot help me now.”

Personal Life comes out Feb. 5 on Exploding In Sound.

Copyright 2015 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Now add Houston, Texas, record label and website Funeral Sounds to Casa Ruby’s list of supporters: The outlet is getting ready to release a benefit compilation for the organization, featuring tunes from D.C.-area acts Two Inch Astronaut, Ricky Eat Acid, Tomato Dodgers, Holy Crust, Teen Suicide and Night Kitchen, in addition to songs from nonlocal bands.

One highlight from the bunch: Two Inch Astronaut’s chaotic cover of Taylor Swift’s “Fifteen.” (Stream it below.)

Funeral Sounds has been slowly unveiling some of the comp’s songs over the last couple of weeks, but the release formally drops June 6. All proceeds go toward Casa Ruby.

Some of this year’s most unforgettable local songs didn’t come from comfortable experiences. They sounded fed up, and particularly urgent in a year marked by growing inequity at home and multiple slayings by police in places that didn’t feel far away.

In one of the year’s rawest rock songs, Thaylobleu cranked up its guitars to tell a personal story of police harassment. Chain and the Gang and Jack On Fire assailed gentrification with wit and hyperbole. Punk band Priests declared everything right wing. Two remarkable hip-hop works channeled frustration and fatalism among young black Americans: Diamond District’s Oddisee cried, “What’s a black supposed to do — sell some crack and entertain?”, while Virginia MC GoldLink rapped about all the glorious things he imagines happening to him — when he dies.

Not that peace and love felt impossible in 2014: In a touching song released two years after his death, Chuck Brown sang of a “beautiful life” enriched by the warmth of community. Promising newcomer Kali Uchis made us kick back with a soulful number steeped in giddy infatuation. Experimentation thrived in D.C. music: Young artists built on the region’s strong punk pedigree and expanded its boundaries. Mary Timony’s band Ex Hex embraced a classic sound and made one of the country’s best rock ‘n’ roll records. Local bands with shorter but distinctive resumes — like Laughing Man, Two Inch Astronaut and Deleted Scenes — sounded better and more creative than ever before. A Sound of Thunder and Gloom reminded us that the D.C. area is still a reliable producer of top-notch metal.

As expected, Bandwidth contributors faced hard choices while making this list of the year’s best local songs, and not only because it’s our first one. Up until deadline, we were still hearing new D.C. songs we wanted to include. But in a place where mounting wealth has created a challenging environment for art, that’s not a problem, really. It’s a testament to a music scene that perseveres despite long odds. —Ally Schweitzer

Warning: Many of these songs contain explicit lyrics.

Working as a duo — with Sam Rosenberg taking on all the vocals, guitar and bass tracks and drummer Matt Gatwood laying down the rest — Two Inch Astronaut opens Foulbrood with its title track, a plea to maintain positivity in a gruesome world. While Rosenberg maintains hope via dramatic falsetto flourishes and emo screams, the outlook over the next nine songs isn’t altogether rosy. Two Inch Astronaut spends the bulk of Foulbrood lamenting life that has passed (“Cigarettes, Boys, And Movies”), the time we waste bickering with one another (“Part Of Your Scene”), and the grief and trauma that comes with death at an early age (“Dead White Boy”).

This is heavy stuff, and through a striking mix of unpredictable arrangements, effective change-ups and whisper-to-scream dynamics, Two Inch Astronaut sounds both familiar and fresh, employing its D.C. influences to their fullest extent. Foulbrood has the potential to expose younger fans to an entire generation of rock gone by, but never at the expense of conveying the emotions of today.

Copyright 2014 NPR. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Listen to the Silver Spring trio’s 2013 LP and you, too, might feel a little stretched: the experimental Bad Brother packed in abrupt shifts in rhythm and melody, snaking through a succession of distorted, percussive wormholes. The band might eschew the rock-criticism cliché “angular”—“What does that even mean?”, Rosenberg asks, grinning—but it’s not a bad adjective for the hairpin turns and unexpected tonal shifts on that 2013 release.

The band jokes about what its sound could be called, throwing out monikers like “angular spaz rock,” “spazzy math rock” and “post-feelings indie.” Rosenberg says, “It’s a balance between being earnest when asked about the type of music we play, but also not wanting to get pigeonholed into a small box.”

Bassist Andy Chervenak (who recently replaced Daniel Pouridas) says “Foulbrood” might be the most accessible song from the band’s forthcoming LP by the same name, out Nov. 25. Laughingly, he calls the track an “ass-kisser.” He’s not completely joking: The song is polished, and it follows a melodic thread unlike some of the more acrobatic songs on Bad Brother. But drummer Matt Gatwood insists that “Foulbrood” still sounds recognizably like Two Inch. The drums still crack, and Rosenberg’s vocals, while bright at times, sound ringed by edginess. The hopeful notes that dot the track fade into memory by the song’s moody end, which leaves its ideas weightless, suspended in space.

On the new album, the trio says to expect a more grave, patient sound, born from a developmental and productive year as the band grew as songwriters and joined Exploding In Sound Records, whose roster includes Speedy Ortiz, Krill and Pile. When Chevarek joined the band, he lent a fresh perspective, Rosenberg says, “because Andy really has a knack for seeing the whole picture.”

For those of us still on Earth, the astronauts’ new album could bring that picture into sharper focus.

Two Inch Astronaut plays Oct. 21 at The Beehive.

That project is Mattress Financial, the Rosenberg solo act that just released a split EP with Fond Han this week on Exploding In Sound Records.

Mattress Financial’s four songs on the Private Split EP (including a digital bonus track) are largely acoustic—a big change from Two Inch Astronaut’s cranked-up, sock-full-of-marbles freakouts. Rosenberg, 22, says sidelining the electric guitar helped him overcome some personal biases.

“I’ve been making little acoustic songs as long as I’ve been playing in bands, but I’ve always been self-conscious about being perceived as one of the innumerable pricks with acoustic guitars playing precious whiny little songs,” Rosenberg writes in an email. “Not to say that I’m not one of those, but I think doing the split was a good excuse to come out of my comfort zone and be a little less self-conscious and judgey about stuff like that.”

The project’s funny name seems in line with the sense of humor scattered all over Bad Brother—see that release’s second track, “Spank Jail”—but it doesn’t come from an expected source, or at least one I detected. “The name comes from a Fat Joe song. I can’t even remember which,” Rosenberg says. (It was “If It Ain’t About Money.”) Rosenberg says he heard the song one morning before work, and thought the lyric “Wrist on froze/Thanks to the stove/Mattress financial/Banks never closed” was “so funny and amazing that I couldn’t stop laughing the entire shift.”

An especially strong track on the split is “I Do That Good,” which includes some drum help from Brendan Bessel. The tune is about “that feeling of being a kid and wanting to find your ‘talent’ or whatever is going to make you distinct,” Rosenberg says. “Kids always seem to be identified that way: Soccer Kid, Coat Kid, Kid Who Is Good at Origami, etc.”

“Put another way,” he says, “it’s about wanting to burn down your school.”

The dawn of Mattress Financial doesn’t signal the dusk of Two Inch Astronaut—on the contrary, Rosenberg says. His main band is recording a new full-length starting this weekend, and come June, it’s hitting the road with Brooklyn band Laughing Fingers.

It sounds like Rosenberg won’t have many distractions from his music in the meantime. “I’m recently unemployed and have been doing freelance yard work,” he says, “if you ever need your lawn mowed.”

The comp includes tracks from The So So Glos, Saintseneca, locals Cigarette and Two Inch Astronaut, and critical darlings Speedy Ortiz (among others), most of them recorded by student engineers this year, says WVAU General Manager Maxwell Tani. “We used to do full band setups, but because we are located near offices and classrooms, we decided to ask most of the bands to record stripped down versions of their songs,” Tani writes in an email. “What that means is that we’ve gotten some really interesting stuff, which is different from what you may get when seeing some of these bands in concert.”

Tani says the sessions—arranged by Events Director Mike Creedon—have already brought visibility to the station, which is run primarily by student volunteers. Of course, it hasn’t been too tough to persuade students to get involved. “It’s an opportunity to learn or practice a skill while producing great content for our stream and website, and meeting awesome bands, so we tend to get a lot of people wanting to help out and be a part of it,” Tani writes.

So far, the general manager’s favorite recording has been the version of “Everything Revival” that The So So Glos played in the studio. “They slowed it down just a bit and played without cymbals. It’s such a catchy song to begin with, but by kind of eliminating the cymbal crashes and distortion, it really emphasized the hooks.” He adds that Natural Child came by earlier this week and “absolutely KILLED”—but were recorded too late to make this compilation. They’re saving it for next time. (It’ll also eventually go up on the station’s Soundcloud page.)

As far as Tani knows, this is the first time the station’s operators have come together to work on a project of this kind. “This is the first time we’ve really made an effort to consistently reach out to local and touring bands for in-studio performances,” he writes. “We realized that we have the equipment to put them on, and the people who could do a good job running them. We just had to get organized and be willing to put in the effort.”

Listen to the compilation: