Montreal indie band Young Galaxy has just released a new album entitled Invisible Republic. (Joe Yarmush/Arts & Crafts)

Until recently, the music of Montreal-based Young Galaxy made many listeners want to kick back and drink beer. That’s because last summer, their hazy tune Come and See got a premium placement in a TV ad for Alexander Keith’s Pale Ale. Most new bands would be tempted to keep rewriting such pleasant tunes to catch the ear of commercial soundtrack supervisors, but Young Galaxy took a different approach.

'You become a caricature of yourself if you tread the same water for too long. To wit: the Rolling Stones.'

— Stephen Ramsay, lead singer of Montreal group Young Galaxy

Their self-titled 2007 debut album established Young Galaxy as purveyors of fuzzy dream-pop anthems, but for their sophomore release, Invisible Republic, the band decided to reinvent itself with spiky post-punk guitars and pulsating rhythms, driving arena rock riffs and even a gospel-tinged singalong.

It’s brave to present your fans with songs that differ so dramatically from what they were expecting, especially when you only have one LP in the can. But as founder Stephen Ramsay explains during a recent interview, challenging listeners was part of Young Galaxy’s plan.

“As a music fan, I used to be like, ‘Why doesn’t Primal Scream just make Screamadelica again? Why did they go on and make that f---ing rock record that sucks so bad?’ But as a musician on this side of it, I understand: they didn’t want to keep making the same music over and over again. It’s boring for you, and it’s ultimately boring for your audience. You become a caricature of yourself if you tread the same water for too long. To wit: the Rolling Stones.”

From Ramsay’s perspective, change is the secret to artistic longevity. “That’s why Radiohead’s been able to endure,” he insists, “because they made right turns very quickly out of the gates. Even though they had massive amounts of people watching their every move, they were uncompromising in making change a part of the very process by which they made records.”

(Arts & Crafts)

“We wanted to try things we were afraid of,” adds vocalist and keyboardist Catherine McCandless. “And with this album, we wanted to perpetuate a feeling we had learned from our live shows and the audiences we were playing to: keep the thriving momentum in it.”

The band began as a bedroom project for Ramsay, who expanded his Galaxy to two after hooking up with current sweetheart McCandless; the pair worked with producer Jace Lasek to create their first record. Ramsay and McCandless were the only full-time members until two key figures joined the fold: classically trained keyboardist Max Henry and bassist Stephen Kamp.

Ramsay credits the new additions – especially Henry, who wrote Invisible Republic’s elegiac song Pathos – with helping shape the band’s new direction. This album marks the first time he and McCandless have included anyone else in the writing process.

“I trust that everybody in the band can kill musically,” says Ramsay. “I think they’re all great musicians, genius musicians. I think we’re capable as a band of making any kind of statement musically, and I intend to do that.”

That eagerness to take charge also motivated the band to part ways with original label Arts and Crafts — home to Broken Social Scene, the titans of Canadian indie rock — and put out their sophomore effort on their own terms. Ramsay jokes that Young Galaxy and its former label were “trying to accomplish the same thing, which was to have total control over the project.” He says he admires Arts and Crafts’ hands-on approach, but maintains the members of Young Galaxy needed to learn from experience, like plunging headlong into the “shitty stuff that nobody wants to figure out” — that is, the business side of things.

Nobody – least of all Ramsay and McCandless – would say that Invisible Republic is an avant-garde opus. But the loopy, primal funk of Disposable Times and the Krautrock breakdown of Long Live the Fallen World signify a bold step forward.

Both Ramsay and McCandless tried to imagine their voices as instruments. Ramsay turns in an admirable variation on a Morrissey-like croon on the Smiths homage Dreams, but it’s McCandless’s chameleon-like delivery that really stands out — she moves from a disaffected balladeer’s sigh to tart rock ‘n’ roll yelps in the space of two tracks.

Vocal manipulation is one of Young Galaxy’s current fascinations. Ramsay cites the influence of Fever Ray, a solo project for Swedish vocalist Karin Dreijer Andersson (of the Knife), which relies on elaborate costumes and heavily synthesized vocals.

“She’ll use a tool to transform the tone of her voice so she sounds like a man,” he eagerly explains. “We recently bought a machine that does that, this vocal effects processor that looks like a big box. It has all these settings like ‘Male, 2 octaves down,’ or ‘Sad child.’”

In an industry driven by the cult of celebrity, the idea of blurring one’s identity seems like a daring risk. Ramsay is all for it. He insists that artists who obscure their personalities often create very personal and powerful music.

“My Bloody Valentine’s [1991 album] Loveless is a great example: there’s a complete removal of the people — even the vocals are so detached. It becomes entirely about sound. We’re f---ing around with that a bit, because we feel like we’ve arrived at a place where we’re always going, ‘We’re just tryin’ our best to be good at what we do!’ No, that’s boring to me! It’s nice and all to try really hard, but I want to play with expectations.”

Invisible Republic is in stores now. Young Galaxy perform at Il Motore as part of the Pop Montreal festival Oct. 1, and kick off a cross-Canada tour in Thunder Bay Oct. 16.

Sarah Liss writes about the arts for CBCNews.ca.