I’m not sure if there are many bands in the indiesphere with a more surprising career trajectory than Milwaukee’s Collections of Colonies of Bees.

Having started out as a bluegrass/electronica side-project (that’s not a typo) of math rock heroes Pele, they became bastions of intricately composed post rock before eventually forming the experimental pop supergroup Volcano Choir with Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon.

Now twenty years separated from the birth of the band, their most recent outing, Hawaii, seems to take more queues from their work with Vernon than their work without him. And not just because this is the first CoCoB record to have vocals on it, even though the addition of Milwaukee folk singer Marielle Allschwang is an absolutely inspired choice.

Instrumentally though, the band has only engaged in this level of epic sonic storytelling on Volcano Choir’s Repave. While albums like GIVING and Birds were deftly constructed pieces of cerebral noise, Hawaii is very much an emotional journey.

There’s still plenty of aural anarchy. Guitars and voices are frequently chopped and warped. Side-A closer “for Ghost” finds Allschwang singing over a single droned note, eventually joined by a swell of over-saturated tape loops until her voice is indecipherable. “Giibs” is far and away the poppiest thing they’ve ever done, but the atmosphere is filled with buzzing synths and chaos-inducing effects pedals.

But somehow, despite the avant-garde noise collages and experimental loops, Hawaii feels more like an indie record than a post rock record. CoCoB has always (well…maybe not always) given a lot of attention to their composition, but Hawaii is the first record that focuses at all on actual songwriting. And though longtime fans might mourn the loss of their distinct brand of fierce experimentation, that disappointment is stayed by Collections of Colonies of Bees offering one of the best indie records of the year.