Menomena will celebrate the new record with an in-store show at 6 p.m. tonight at Music Millennium.

It's been 3 1/2 years since

last released a record, and the good news about that period of time is this: No one got hurt. Physically. As far as we know.

"Mines," which hits stores today, was made the same way the band's three previous records were. They recorded hundreds of musical loops, riffed and jammed, constructed songs out of those bits and pieces, and then tore those songs apart and built them again. And again. And again. This caused delay, and tension and probably some nasty e-mails -- e-mail because they rarely work in the same room.

Drummer Danny Seim doesn't seem to be exaggerating when he writes: "However, in the wake of brutal disagreements, unrelenting grudges and failed marriages (not to mention a world full of modern terrorism, natural disasters and economic collapse), somehow this band is still standing."

Whether the product is worth the acrimony is up to the individual members, but the product is a very good record. Seim calls it art rock, but the phrase suggests a level of inaccessibility that doesn't exist. It's a rock record, loud at times, ominous at others, full of conflict.

And it's not like the difficulties between Seim (who also sings), Brent Knopf (keyboards, guitar, vocals) and Justin Harris (bass, saxophone, guitar, vocals) are new. Taking time out recently from figuring out how to play the new studio concoctions live, Seim noted how he came across e-mails recently from when they were recording their first record.

"It was amazing how heated it was, how intense," he says. "There were signs early on this was going to be no walk in the park."

This is an edited version of the rest of that conversation.

O:

I imagine the original idea was to finish touring off the last record, come home and knock out the new one, right?

DS:

We've always taken forever between albums. We've been together for 10 years and it's our fourth record. When we finished touring, right around the beginning of 2008, we were all motivated to start writing and see if we could shrink the usual three-year gap down to two or 2 1/2. You can't rush certain things, Menomena records being one of those things.

O:

Ever consider just doing a sloppy punk record?

DS:

Yeah, that's a really good idea. I think most of my songs probably sound like sloppy punk songs. Maybe that's for the next record.

O:

Go 3 1/2 days between the release of this one and the next one.

DS:

Totally. And let the fans decide.

O:

Capitalism at its finest. The way you describe the process, I imagine a lot of doors being slammed in the making of a Menomena record.

DS:

Funny you should mention that. The last song on this record quite literally features the percussive sound of a door slamming. That's one thing I think would be great to work on -- not get frustrated and swearing off the others in the band. I wish I could always adjust the mind-set that the end justifies the means. When you're in the thick of it, it's hard to trust the other guys and know we will be happy with it. I get caught up in the momentum thing and we just finished the last record, and the reception was good and the tours were good and I want to build on it. And I'm questioning my mortgage and wondering, "Are we going to get this out?"

O:

What takes so long?

DS:

There always are major changes to songs, right up to deadline. And once it comes out I'm really glad they're made. But it's hard not to make that the rationale for taking longer. There's the whole lack of studio budget and the lack of label pressure -- but they're also huge pressures, too. It's great for creative control but it sucks for maintaining any sort of deadline.

O:

How do you decide when it's done?

DS:

When we're all homeless, and we pretty much have no other choice.

O:

Do you guys actually get together in the studio, or is it a process of e-mailing parts and songs and back and forth between the three of you?

DS:

We're all 10 or 15 minutes apart, but we're e-mailing each other, minimizing the person-to-person contact as much as possible. We idolize these bands that talk about their creative process being so much more collaborative. I just think that, while the respect for our contributions hasn't waned over the years, it's become such a business relationship, in so many levels, sadly. I hate to make it sound super dramatic, but the easy answer would be we've learned our own individual processes so well I think getting together would be rocking the boat at this point.

O:

How does it work then when you tour? You have to interact then.

DS:

It works better because we're all so focused. We still drive ourselves around the country in our own little beat-up van. We've got everything mapped out. There's not a lot creative decisions going into it. If Brent has a weird driving style, I might yell at him.