Kevin Bronson on November 15th, 2010

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Four albums into his songwriting career and six years into a tour of duty as a Los Angeles resident, Chris Zerby never feels at a loss for source material. “L.A. surprises me with something every day,” the principal architect behind the L.A. quintet Hello Dragon says. “It’s a vast, crazy world that never ceases to amaze me, and continues to inspire me in every way imaginable.”

Zerby teamed with childhood pal Julie Chadwick to make two albums of crunchy boy-girl power-pop as Helicopter Helicopter in their Boston days. After moving west and embarking on Hello Dragon, their pop has taken on a spacier, more layered sheen, while retaining its winsome coed vocals and its wry, whimsical outlook.

“Information,” their second album and the follow-up to 2008’s underrated “The Quantum Explorers,” nods to its geography in a couple of obvious ways (“Cities Need a Subway,” naturally, and “107,” after the downtown bar), and a foreboding city and its perils are referenced in “Death of the Americas” and “Ambulance Driver.” Zerby’s sharp observations veer at times toward that trait L.A. transplants seem to do best – ironic detachment – and there are moments on “Information” that you imagine Eels pulling off.

||| Download: “Cities Need a Subway”

Some of the songs on the album were released as free downloads – last year, Hello Dragon started, then abandoned, a free song-a-month plan. “i just didn’t feel like the songs were getting the released they deserved,” Zerby said of the material written over a two-year period. Besides, he adds, the songs weren’t quite coming as fast as they used to. “When I was 22, I had 10 ideas a week and I’d bring them all to the band. Now if I’m a couple hours into something and I know it’s going to suck, I’ll just let it go.

“That’s the benefit of age – you find it easier not to write bad songs.”

The dynamics of the band have changed the process too. Between days jobs and Chadwick’s studies at UCLA, there’s no longer the opportunity to play a lot of shows to work out the kinks in new material. “It’s a little more of a songwriting project now,” Zerby says, and the progression of Hello Dragon’s is testament to a little more studio know-how. “We used to be a straightforward power-pop band – two guitars, bass and drums. Now there’s a more going on, a lot more tomfoolery in the arrangements.”

“Information” was self-released last week. Live, Zerby and Chadwick are joined by bassist Michael Eisenstein (Letters to Cleo/Kay Hanley), drummer Sean Burgess and keyboardist Jeremy Wilkins.

||| Stream: The whole album on Bandcamp.

||| Live: Hello Dragon’s record-release show is Nov. 20 at Spaceland, a Buzz Bands LA night featuring White Sea, Teddy Geiger and Dananananakroyd.