Energy is one of the hardest things to maintain in recorded music. Though a lot of upstart bands can capture rollicking creative energy on their debut album, creating another album with the same vibrancy can be an impossible task. The Plastic Constellations, though, have always made it sound easy — but you have to think that eventually their tank will run dry. Fortunately, that doesn't happen on their latest album, We Appreciate You.

The album’s 11 post-hardcore, prog-tinged indie-rock songs burn with the same insatiable energetic prowess that the band has been showing off since their 2000 debut, Let’s War. Luckily, the album is more than just dizzying, fist-pumping heroics. The band has taken a big step forward, weaving a tunefulness into their sound that never existed before. The Plastic Constellations have always been able to get heads banging, but they’ve never been able to keep a melody lingering in those banging heads after the din quieted down. That they’ve managed to integrate this newfound melodic approach without sacrificing a shred of their ferocity is truly commendable. Now their songs are blistering and catchy, and their choruses are as epic as their breakdowns, their sound inching closer to The Dismemberment Plan and further from Unwound.

We Appreciate You runs its course quickly, but the half hour it provides is a very full one. Like a good, productive energy burst, the album finishes a bit earlier than you might have hoped, but it leaves you feeling satisfyingly exhausted.