Kevin Bronson on June 11th, 2009

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File this under feel-good local stories: Silver Lake favorites Division Day are signing to Dangerbird Records, the L.A.-based home to Silversun Pickups, Darker My Love, Sea Wolf, the Dears and Eulogies, among others. The band’s sophomore album, “Visitation,” is tentatively set for release in August. The formal announcement of the new alliance is expected later this week.

“Division Day has always been that local band that everyone loves, on and off stage. The kind of people you want to see do well – to get there,” Dangerbird co-founder Peter Walker says. “And now that they’ve made an undeniable record, it’s a bit of a no-brainer.”

Earlier this year, Division Day recorded that album with Justin Meldal-Johnsen, the producer and ace bassist (Nine Inch Nails, Beck) who is a client of Dangerbird’s artist management arm and also worked on the forthcoming release by the label’s Dappled Cities. Two new DD tracks, “Visitation” and “Devil Light” were just posted at the band’s MySpace site.

“When we were starting to think about making another record,” Division Day guitarist Ryan Wilson says, “we knew that we wanted to work with somebody outside of the band to sort of help cohere the sound a bit, contribute ideas, and manage the sessions – somebody that shared similar musical interests but wasn’t going to be totalitarian about his approach.

“On the suggestion of our management, we sent him some demos and he fell in love with ‘Malachite,’ and then things sort of developed from there. After all was said and done, we ended up tracking the record in 10 days at the Bank in Burbank during the second half of March. We actually ended up using a lot of tracks that [singer-keyboardist Rohner Segnitz] recorded at home and in our practice space on the record as well. … It came together really quickly and JMJ deserves a lot of credit for keeping it together.”

The foursome – Segnitz, Wilson, bassist Seb Bailey and drummer Kevin Lenhart – haven’t had the best of fortunes. They unveiled their well-regarded debut “Beartrap Island” in 2007 after first self-releasing the album, then signing to a start-up label that never got off the ground, and then finally striking a deal with Eenie Meenie.

Wilson says the band is thrilled to have a new home. “Dangerbird is doing great things right now – I don’t think there’s a place quite like it around these days,” he says. “We made this record on our own dime by borrowing from friends and family with no expectations for what would happen at the end of the process, so to come out of it and land with Dangerbird was serendipitous and rejuvenating, especially after all of the doldrums we sailed through just to get to the point where entering the studio made sense.”