Recorded in the summer of 2011, Be The Void seizes that vibrant spirit and transforms it into a 12-track song selection that\'s at turns deadly catchy and dance-worthy (the shuffling swagger of Big Girl ), wistful and bittersweet (the lovely, languid sigh of Get Away ), and earthy-earnest (the twangy troubadour folk of Turning the Century ). Though each track feels richly textured and intricately layered, the band made a conscious effort to keep the recording process fast and loose. We worked quicker and trusted our gut more than ever before, and at times it was scary and almost panic-inducing, says guitarist-vocalist Scott McMicken. All of a sudden you\'d be aware of a feeling like, \'This is really working, so don\'t mess it up.\' And then the song ends and your heart\'s pounding and you realize you haven\'t taken a breath in three minutes. It was like riding a rollercoaster and wishing you could get right back on again. As a result of that newfound abandon and surrender to intuition, there\'s so much on the record that I could never have imagined us being able to come up with, McMicken adds. All throughout Be The Void, Dr. Dog delights in a playfulness that lends a refreshingly oddball feel even to the record\'s more true-to-form tracks. These Days, for instance, backs it\'s bouncy bassline with a dizzying swirl of sunny guitars, while the handclapping and hollering on the album-opening Lonesome help twist a downer of a refrain ( What does it take to be lonesome? Nothing at all ) into a sweetly anthemic stomper of a song.