Baltimore-based indie-rock hot shots Lower Dens made their Middletown debut this weekend at Eclectic, much to Wes students’ delight. But that’s not all the band’s been up to lately. (Really? Wesleyan isn’t the center of everyone’s universe?)

“I don’t know what to expect this year,” said Lower Dens bassist Geoff Graham on playing the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas. “I mean, I know what the festival is like, but I don’t know how it’s going to be for us. We’ll just have to see. It can be harsh—there are hundreds of thousands of people, and it seems like they’re all trying to promote their energy drinks.”

Austin holds a lot of history for Lower Dens, the current project of freak-folk songstress and Devendra Banhart-cohort Jana Hunter, formed in 2008 when Hunter decided to assemble a full-time band. The band’s development can be tracked by performances at SXSW—Dens first played there in 2010, before the release of their debut album, Twin-Hand Movement, and now the members are returning for a third year, this time promoting their upcoming sophomore release, Nootropics.

“We went down there for the first time as a very young band,” Graham said. “It was just me and Jana and our original drummer. We were playing really small shows, and it was kind of a humbling experience, but a good one on the whole.”

The band returns this year, now not-so-young and heavily hyped. Mellow, introspective, and drenched in reverb, the incredibly matured and sure-footed Twin-Hand Movement was a hit with critics. Their sound recalled the best of the early nineties—Yo La Tengo plus PJ Harvey, dipped in haze.

With every critically lauded freshman release comes pressure to create a successful follow-up and avoid the dreaded sophomore slump; however, Graham thinks that Lower Dens is out of the woods.

“We were happy with Twin-Hand Movement, but we’re happy with this album too,” he said. “I think people who listen to the first album are going to hear a lot of differences in the new one, differences in the ways the songs are written, in the arrangements. The songs are a lot more epic.”

Since the release of their debut, Lower Dens’ members have struggled with line-up changes, replacing both their drummer and lead guitarist in the last year. The effects of these personnel changes are clear on Nootropics.

“On the new album we use some electronic drums, which we didn’t use before, but we still [use] real drums,” Graham said. “The drummer we’re working with now, Nate Nelson, has been a drummer his whole life, but he’s also an electronic musician. When he came on, we were able to use all of his talents.”

This year’s road to SXSW includes stops at many colleges—including Wesleyan.

“Playing universities is great because of the students,” Graham said. “They’re young and interested in music, and they’re really excited and appreciative when bands can make it to their school. It’s fun; the audiences tend to be more exciting to play for. We cannot wait to be there.”

Anyone who was at the concert shared the same sentiment—Wesleyan students couldn’t wait for the band to play. The concert was slow-burning, atmospheric, and on the whole, a fantastic lead in to the final stretch of the pre-spring break concert season.

Nootropics will be released in North America on May 1.