Kevin Bronson on August 31st, 2017

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Bay Area indie-rock duo Elder Brother features the union of Dan Rose from Boston’s Daybreaker and Kevin Geyer of The Story So Far, going for a sound outside of the punk/pop-punk aesthetic of their original projects. The duo debuted in 2014 with the full-length “Heavy Head” before following up with the “concept” EP “Wish You Were Here” — it featured an original of that name along with covers of songs titled “Wish You Were Here” by the Get Up Kids, Ryan Adams and Pink Floyd. All nicely done, by the way.

Introducing itself with a noisy wash of guitars, the single “No Reason” is a 3 1/2-minute agitant with panic-attack drums and Rose ticking off the reasons he has “no reason to stay.” It’s the first song on an album the duo has planned for 2018, and, as it turns out, one of those happy accidents. “It’s the last song we wrote for it,” Rose says. “We wrote the song in [Nu-Tone Studios in Pittsburg] while we were checking mics to start tracking the rest of the album. Ben [producer/engineer Hirschfield] got levels while we worked out the main parts of the song. We played it live when we went to Japan last month, and it’s already one of my favorites in the set.”

Speaking of live, Elder Brother is on the lineup for the High & Low Festival, being headlined by Brand New and Death Cab for Cutie, on Sept. 9 at the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino. “We weren’t initially on the lineup but I had been planning on driving down from the Bay for it anyway,” Rose says. “Death Cab is one of my favorites of all time, and Alex G, Now, Now and Cloud Nothings are some of our favorite bands going right now, so when we were asked to play it was a no-brainer.”

||| Stream: “No Reason”