Check out Alan Alda’s new EP—or not. It’s all the same to the band

The members of Denver’s Alan Alda realized early on an important component of getting people to its shows: No amount of marketing or digital haranguing makes much difference if you aren’t already inclined to go. “We’re not going to send everybody those little pop-up messages on Facebook every time we play a show,” drummer Matt Grizzell says with a laugh.

In case you’re still anxiously awaiting your event notification on Facebook for Alan Alda’s upcoming EP release show, it’s this Saturday at the Hi-Dive. Like its predecessor, the deftly named II dumps a pile of churning, D.C.–hardcore low-ends on top of understated pop-guitar sensibilities. Recorded mostly live with a few punch-ins here and there, the effort’s an attempt to recreate its live sound and dynamic rather than using digital-age post-production to try to trick listeners into thinking the band’s something that it isn’t. “It’s an honest snapshot of the band at the time,” Grizzell says. “This is how we sound right now.”

Alan Alda’s warts-and-all approach is hardly messy. The members of the trio—fleshed out by singer-guitarist Luke Goodhue and bassist Chris White—played enough together, and in prior local acts, to pull it off live in the studio. Alan Alda’s members have also been around long enough to understand that it’s not the amount of attention you can wring out of the local music scene through obnoxious bedroom-marketing strategies; it’s the amount of love you put into the songs that counts, and there’s a lot of love poured into II. Unlike many of its contemporaries, Alan Alda doesn’t need your attention and adoration to affirm its work. “I think it’s just ego,” Grizzell says of the self-branding promotion machines around town. “We got to the point where we realized what we’re doing is good enough without begging for [attention].”