By Dustin Lothspeich | Contributor

Bands have it pretty rough when you get down to it: Far too often, groups that don’t abandon their stylistic approach from one album to the next are criticized for not “maturing” and those that do face an equal amount of criticism for not staying true to whatever sound got them there in the first place. It’s nearly always a lose-lose situation.

For local quintet Hills Like Elephants, the fact that they’ve flipped the script and detoured from the ever-expanding electronic experimentalism of their last two albums to the no frills, what-you-see-is-what-you-get indie rock-pop of their upcoming fourth studio effort, “Tell Tales,” is simply a testament to the band’s fearless, trend-bucking attitude.

“Some people would say we’re digressing but I disagree,” said the band’s frontman Sean Davenport over coffee at North Park’s Caffe Calabria. “I really think that it’s just a matter of us simplifying. I suppose some people might think of it as us not wanting to take the time to add all sorts of synths and electronic things but we really meant for it to sound stripped down. It just has a lot of energy that overly dressed stuff covers up.”

Produced by the band — which, in addition to singer/keyboardist Davenport is comprised of guitarist Andrew Armerding, bassist Daniel Gallo, multi-instrumentalist Greg Theilmann and drummer Michael Hams — over the last several months, the back-to-basics sound of “Tell Tales” reigns in the electro-themed sonic exploration of 2013’s “Feral Flocks” and especially last year’s “Bedroom Colonies” EP for a predominantly more upbeat vibe akin to the bustling pop of Talking Heads and Roxy Music.

The album’s seven tracks vary in dynamics, similar to their previous records, but there’s a concerted urgency to these new batch of songs: Lead off track, “Backwards,” lurches out of the gate with an audible virility — all stutter beat, crackling percussion and ever-building post-punk propulsion. It ends unexpectedly with a somber, haunting coda of piano and Davenport’s cavernous, echoed wails.

“Note to Self” finds Hills Like Elephants in full-on seduction mode, with their singer’s writhing falsetto warbling over Armerding’s short electric guitar stabs and Gallo’s touch ’n go bass line. Obvious single, “Misquote,” is foot-tapping pop genius that oozes a certain ’80s-esque buoyancy with its sprightly pep and fun melody, while “Chance” and “Wildabeast” deliberately stomp along with a locked-in drum and bass punch.

Truth be told, the band’s uncanny knack for building songs with huge, bursting-at-the-seams climaxes has become their live show calling card — and usually finds Davenport flailing around the stage with his keyboard halfway up his back — and until now, has never been properly committed to tape.

It’s a common theme in the musical community since the invention of recording equipment: How exactly do you capture the elusive onstage energy — driven by nerves, sweat, volume and spontaneity — that comes with a live performance?

“A lot of the criticism on some of the stuff we’ve done in the past is, ‘They’re really good live but sometimes that gets lost on the album because of all the overdubbing,’” Davenport explained in between sips of iced coffee.

“So this time around, we just said, ‘Let’s just record it as we do it,’” he said. “For whatever reason, when we were doing ‘Feral Flocks’ or ‘Bedroom Colonies,’ we were listening to a lot of electronic music but this is the first album that we don’t have any electronic drums on. Not to mention it’s the first album with our new drummer, Mikey, who’s been the best thing that’s happened to us in a while.”

Indeed, the group’s had a rather rough go of it for the last year or two, after a falling out with their management and a tug-of-war with the studio/label they recorded “Tell Tales” at. Not to mention having to overcome several intra-band struggles like new jobs, medical issues and personal relationships gone bad.

“In the last year alone, a lot of our lives changed,” Davenport confided. “There’s a whole world of stuff that happened … so we never really know what the game plan is. We continue to write and we have new songs in the mix. We just got back from South By Southwest and we have shows in and out of town lined up after our album release.”

Davenport said the band would like to play the East Coast at some point this year and have even branched out to Tijuana.

“We’ve been playing places like the Mous Tache Bar and the reaction is insane down there … and you know, being international never hurts,” he said, laughing.

Neither does selling out the Casbah, Midtown’s infamous rock club on Kettner Boulevard. The band, which is preparing for their record release show there on April 10 with Schitzophonics, Wild Wild Wets and Gloomsday, have sold it out once before — at last year’s “Bedroom Colonies” release — and, admittedly, it came as a shock.

“When we did that show, it was the first time we had headlined the Casbah,” he said. “We were wrecks going into it, thinking, ‘What if, like, 20 people show up?’”

Shortly before they took the stage, however, staff informed them they were closing the doors. Davenport said they had to explain to the surprised band that nothing bad happened, it was due to capacity. Since then, the turnouts have only continued to grow and if their past events are any indication, they’ll have plenty of folks on hand to help them celebrate “Tell Tales” in all its stripped-down glory.

“Selling out last year’s show kinda ups the ante for this one a little bit but I think we’ve prepared for it the right way — we’ve got Lucha Libre catering it,” Davenport said, laughing. “So if you don’t go for the music, then at least go for the food.”

—Dustin Lothspeich is a local freelance music writer. Reach him at [email protected].