UPDATE  (Monday, February 6, 2017) This story has been updated to include information about Planned Parenthood, which will receive album sales proceeds.

***

Newtown-based The Hadron Big Bangers (THBB) has just released its second album,

flAsh. According to a recent THBB announcement, band members in January were "thrilled, honored, and downright humbled" to announce the release of their latest digital album.

A first song by the same name has a synthesized, hard rock sound with a sorrowful voice threaded through it, and after the initial series of science fictionlike sounds and a sudden hard beat comes the first line: "I was born / and I howled / but now it's all right."

Robert Are (Rabinowitz), half of THBB duo with Martin Ear (Earley), agreed that his music could work as a movie soundtrack.

Describing the album as a whole he said, "I guess there is a little sci-fi, dark, but it's not negative, but the sci-fi is a good description." Mr Are also feels "there are a lot of influences in there."

Each song represents its own experience, Mr Are agreed. "Yes, it's not a concept album," he said. The two musicians developed the music and lyrics.

"Overall it's a collaboration," said Mr Are. The duo has been working together for at least five years.

Their first album, Strange Beauty Decays, came out in 2013, but THBB's work goes back to 2011.

Ranging from 3½ to roughly ten minutes long, the songs conjure eerie vignettes. Listen to songs individually for free at

hadronbigbangers.bandcamp.com/album/flash, or download the album for $7.

"We think that's a reasonable price - it's free to listen to online, but for $7 you get the higher quality format on download, it's so much better," Mr Are said. The album is available for free streaming on Bandcamp, but the $7 version offers songs "in high fidelity; uncompressed, sparkling clean and pristine," the announcement states.

What type of sound is the music? "Some prog rock groups accept it as that, while others say it's not," Mr Are said. "Some of the songs are kind of scary, others have rock influence.

"There are a lot of synthesized elements to it, and a lot of the rhythms have been programmed," he continued, "but you hear flutes and saxophones on there, and the guitar, so there are different elements."

Mr Ear said, "'Cut Loose' is the strangest - we went totally off the rails with that one, we played things we didn't necessarily know how to play and we liked how it sounded. Some songs are a little mellower than what we have done," which is where "we are heading" in future work, he said.

flAsh was recorded over the course of a year.

"We have day jobs and we worked on it when we could throughout the year. Until finally we were done and wanted to get it out there," Mr Are said.

Considering THBB's sound, Mr Are said: "We have been using a term lately to not necessarily describe this album, but things we have been doing in the past few months - we started describing it as industrial psychedelia. I have had people tell me that if they compare us we sound like Stereo Lab, Pink Floyd."

Their music has different elements, he said. "I have had a hard time encapsulating the sound. We're around 60 [years old] and you're listening to a lifetime of influence. I am classically trained, but have played in rock bands and jazz bands. It's like reading; I like science, fiction, I don't have to like just one thing."

The song "The Blue Wire" features the opening lyrics: "It feels like the night I saw you walk away."

The track "Cut Loose" is also a heavily synthesized song with a techno beat featuring eerie electronically altered voices that echo and pump out lyrics. Sounds of horns accent the song.

The final track, "The Wreck," adds up to nine new songs from THBB. "The Wreck" takes a turn with more pleading voices highlighted by light, flutelike sounds.

Mr Ear also tried to describe THBB sound.

"Tough question," he admitted. "We're drawing from many things. It's insane in terms of direction. That's a real stumper."

He and Mr Are "are experimenting with standard structures, we're a deconstructionist kind of band and we take things apart and rebuild our own way … we build tunes, kind of like getting inspiration another way."

Rather than emulate other songs, however, he said, "We rebuild them a different way." As an "experimentalist band," he said, "we'll never be a popular commercial band. This type of stuff is select," but he sees a growing number of people who "improvise and work outside the box."

Each member of THBB "have both done standard [music] and have stretched into our own terms," Mr Ear said. The band is for their own enjoyment, he said.

"We create sounds and a little melody here and there and get some words into that," said Mr Ear.

Discussing their creative process, he said, "We will dissect things." Their songs take "bits and pieces, and you snatch things from the air, a melody, it's very reactionary."

Mr Ear said: "Whatever Rob does, I'll work off that or against that or whatever we feel a song calls for. Take a song you know, throw the music away and create your own music. Everybody's got music in their heads. It's more about fun these days."

Also considering the comparison to a sci-fi soundtrack, Mr Ear said, "I am partial to that sort of thing and I have written songs that were in the horror rock or sci-fi rock, and a made for a sci-fi movie."

After the pair started THBB, "We have added people and become the hydronica quartet … we can do whatever we want and are beholden to no one and it's for our own enjoyment. Rob and I are the core group and others come in when they can." Occasional musicians will add drums, electronics, trumpet, keyboards, he said. "It's an improv version of what we do. We can get like-minded musicians to join us and create things."

Learn more about THBB at the band's website, hadron.weebly.com. All album proceeds from purchases made on Bandcamp through Monday, February 13, will benefit Planned Parenthood.