Kevin Bronson on September 6th, 2018

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Since their start five-plus years ago, L.A.’s Line & Circle have cultivated a robust, guitar-driven sound reminiscent of the college rock of the 1980s and ’90s. Maybe you weren’t around then, but Rolling Stone was; the magazine has accurately described them as “Michael Stipe jamming with Johnny Marr.” Line & Circle released their debut full-length “Split Figure” in 2015 and followed up with an EP, “Vicious Folly,” late last year, fashioning a grandiose melancholy that chimed with hope.

In advance of the band’s West Coast tour with Arthur Buck (the new supergroup featuring Joseph Arthur and Peter Buck), Line & Circle return this week with “Full Disclosure,” a song from the quartet’s album/EP sessions with longtime collaborator and producer Lewis Pesacov. It’s about the agonizing process of healing from a relationship that ended too soon, and in too much mystery.

“It’s a song that is certainly born out of deep emotional turmoil — the impossibility of moving on from a relationship when you have absolutely no idea why it ended in the first place,” singer-guitarist Brian Cohen says. “Situations like that can haunt you for a long time, until or unless you find some way to move past it. Sometimes that’s just not possible and it stays with you forever. When you have nothing but speculation to cling to, it can do great damage to the mind and the body.”

Although the subject matter stings, the song itself “came together somewhat magically in the studio,” Cohen says. “I’m not sure we ever even played it live before we recorded it. But we all remember that it sounded done after the first or second take live off the floor to tape, which is what you hope for but not always what you achieve when tracking. There’s just something about it that works.”

Speaking of the studio, Line & Circle — Cohen along with guitarist Eric Neujahr, bassist Jon Engelhard and drummer Garrett Ray — have a new batch of songs they are preparing to record starting next month with producer Jake Aron (Snail Mail). The band will be previewing some of those songs on the coming tour.

||| Stream: “Full Disclosure”

||| Live: Line & Circle open for Arthur Buck (Joseph Arthur and Peter Buck) on four West Coast dates starting Friday, including Sept. 11 at the Teragram Ballroom. Teragram tickets.

||| Previously: “Man Uncouth,” “Like a Statue,” “Roman Ruins”