This year finds MV + EE attempting to transform the traditional living and work structures of their Brattleboro, VT home into spaces of intergalactic, cosmic/sonic exploration and catharsis. Drone Trailer, released earlier this year on DiCristina and featuring The Golden Road, found MV + EE investigating a more introspective and mellow acoustic terrain. Barn Nova, their new album for Ecstatic Peace, shows them embracing the same heartfelt confessional mood, but with more robust, deep space guitar dimensions which delightfully buzz around and blossom in interesting hallucinatory directions.

With a vast discography of CDRs, tapes, LPs, and live bootlegs stretching out over the past decade, it’s likely difficult for those other than the devoted heads to get excited about a new MV + EE release. They continue to mine the same psych-folk aesthetic, and it’s clear that they have no intention of straying from the sounds that they’ve already explored a million trips over. However, despite their infinite journeys down the same roads, Barn Nova might very well be their best studio release yet simply because the recording captures the sounds so well, providing them the space to linger and glow naturally.

After the more upbeat and uncomfortable jam-band feel of the first two tracks, the album takes a darker turn with “Snapperhead.” The multiple guitars, which are played in various places on the album by MV, EE, Doc Dunn, J. Mascis, and Mike Smith, zoom around and seem to create space rather than fill it. “Summer Magic,” which sets up a dark rhythm and minor chord structure reminiscent of Pink Floyd, features two lead guitar tracks that perfectly compliment each other. The louder and more furious of the guitars sits upfront— sounding an awful lot like a Mascis contribution—allowing the quieter lead phrase to drift underneath it, producing a deep textural space of both intensity and calm.

“Wandering Nomad,” aside from being one of the more hard hitting, stand-out tracks on the album, also conceptually mirrors MV + EE’s approach to guitar-based composition. The notes move around rootlessly, and those created by the same guitar often travel in more than one direction, floating freely, creating an unstructured ground for sonic exploration. This rhizomatic sound has been present throughout their discography, but Barn Nova captures the warmth and grandiosity of the tones exceptionally well. This improved recording quality makes songs like “Bedroom Eyes,” where the same Neil Young-inspired vocal and guitar foundation that MV + EE have built on in the past, sound fresh and contemporary rather than nostalgic and outdated. While this may not be enough to convince new listeners to jump onboard, Barn Nova will definitely have those already convinced to reach for their headphones to properly experience its lush atmospherics.