Kevin Bronson on June 23rd, 2023

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Chris Vos’ guitar does a lot of the talking in the Record Company’s new single “Talk to Me,” but the L.A. trio’s self-described “junky” drums and a vintage bass complete the conversation.

The song is the first release under the band’s new deal with Round Hill Records. The trio — Vos, bassist Alex Stiff and drummer Marc Cazorla — had just started working on the follow-up to their third album, 2021’s “Play Loud,” when they learned they’d been dropped by their record company. But the Record Company persevered and now plan to release their fourth full-length this fall.

In a way, “Talk to Me” takes the band, formed in 2011, back to the start, making unvarnished roots-rock — those roots being in old blues and Motown — that sounds as if it belongs on a scratchy 45.

“With ‘Talk To Me,’ we used the same junky yard-sale drum set heard on our earliest recordings,” Stiff says. “When the question came up later whether to re-record the song in a more professional studio setting, we voted that the original spirit was more important than polish, and we left that groove intact. A lot of the album follows this same vision.”

||| Stream: “Talk to Me”

||| Live: The Record Company play Tuesday at the Knitting Factory NoHo (tickets) as part of the benefit series for public radio outlet 88.5 FM The SoCal Sound.

||| Previously: “How High,” “Life to Fix,” live at the Fonda, interview with Chris Vos, “Off the Ground” live at Make Music Pasadena 2014; “Baby I’m Broken” video; “Feels So Good,” “This Crooked City,” “So What’cha Want,” Ears Wide Open