Ivan & Alyosha woodshedded for close to a year in making the new album in a variety of locations, from Carbary's own Seattle area condo home studio to first-album producer Chad Coplein's Black Watch Studios in Norman, Oklahoma and L.A.'s famed Sunset Sound with mixer/co-producer Joe Chiccarelli, who has worked with U2, My Morning Jacket, Elton John, The Shins, Etta James and The Strokes.

The band, which originally took its name from two characters in Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, has developed into a three-headed songwriting beast, with the Wilson brothers and Carbary carrying virtually an equal load on the new album. The eclectic 11-song effort takes off with the pure adrenaline of Pete's contributions, "Something Is Wrong" and "Bury Me Deep," highlighted by jangling guitars and pointed observations about freedom and personal responsibility in today's society. "As a songwriter, I feel a huge responsibility to be honest,"says Pete Wilson. "And most of the time, that honesty comes at a price of digging down deep into my own faults, frustrations, and doubts. I've tried to write the protest song where I point the finger and place the blame elsewhere, but it never works out." He adds, "The goal is to hold up the mirror to our own shortcomings, and start asking, "how do I get out of the mess I've put myself in?"

Tim's "All This Wandering Around," the first single, offers a haunted Roy Orbison-like croon featuring Tim Kim's swampy delta blues guitar break wrapped around a song of the search for a power greater than oneself, and the stumbles in finding it along the way.

"There has to be honesty," says Tim. "Lyrically and thematically, our songs connect with people, no matter what they believe. We hopefully provide some sort of light, whenever - and wherever - they listen to them."

According to Tim, the album title (which comes from Pete's song) depicts a modern world where reality is hidden behind materialistic illusions, illustrated in songs like his "Modern Man," a funky, '80s Bowie-meets-Hall & Oates R&B number that takes aim on our fetish for technology and outward appearances.

"Somewhere on the journey long ago," he sings. "You lost your place," adding that we're "drowning in the ocean of your lowered expectations."

Carbary's aching, self-lacerating songs explore harsh truths about relationships and domesticity with an eye towards traditional roots rock, evoking the piano balladry of Paul McCartney ("Tears In Your Eyes"), a bluesy four-on-the-floor shuffle punctuated with poppy "Penny Lane" horns ("Oh This Love") and a country gospel lament about relationships - one with a fellow human, the other a higher spiritual power -- featuring his own twangy slide guitar ("Drifting Away"). "I've always been a sucker for a heartbreak song," admits Ryan. "I'm mostly expressing my failures as a human being, and striving to become a better person. It's true emotion."