Kevin Bronson on February 3rd, 2009

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Sounds like a gimmick – a rock band anchored by the three Berlin brothers making an album in Berlin – but the nine months the Living Things spent in the German capital rate as the most exciting and profilic of the quartet’s young lives. “We went to Berlin with a bunch of songs and an idea for the album’s vibe,” singer-guitarist Lillian Berlin says, “and we left Berlin with a different set of songs and a completely different vibe.”

The final product, “Habeas Corpus” (due Feb. 17 on Jive/Zomba), carries the faint sonic fingerprints of three decades of legends – the likes of Bowie, Iggy Pop, Nick Cave and Depeche Mode – who preceded the native St. Louisans into Berlin’s Hansa Recording Studios. Oh, it’s still the Living Things, thanks to fuzz-grenades that detonate in pointed social commentary and guitar licks that punctuate broadsides to greed and debauchery. But compared to the political charges the foursome set off on their 2005 debut, this is more pontificate-while-you-party.

“The city itself really influenced us, everything about it,” Berlin says. “The nightlife in Berlin is very beat-driven, and that influenced the beats behind the songs – there’s more of a dance vibe.

“I feel on the first album we were speaking our minds about the world and about America and its abuse of power in a very angry, youthful way. Now we’re speaking it in a more celebratory fashion, because times in America are changing. I don’t know if they’re necessarily changing for the better, so we have to be [vigilant]. But hopefully man won’t be killing man. Hopefully we’ve learned from our mistakes.”

Berlin, en route with brothers Eve and Bosh and bandmate Cory Becker to the West Coast for tour dates, says the 3 1/2-year span between albums, “doesn’t feel to us like it’s been that long.”

“We toured very heavily after our first album, and then we wrote enough material for three or four records before we finally buckled down a set a course,” he says. “The good news that our next record won’t take nearly as long because we have all the material written and recorded.”

||| Live: Living Things open for Eagles of Death Metal on Wednesday at the Music Box @ Fonda.

||| Watch: The video for “Let It Rain”: