Swearin’ never expected people to hear their music, let alone love it. Formed in Brooklyn by guitarist Allison Crutchfield, guitarist Kyle Gilbride, drummer Jeff Bolt, and bassist Keith Spencer in 2011, the noise-pop group had modest ambitions. But the candor with which their 2012 self-titled debut captured the optimism and anxieties of early adulthood quickly attracted an audience who saw themselves in the band’s reflections.

In late 2012, Swearin’ relocated to Philadelphia where—alongside bands like Hop Along, Sheer Mag, and Waxahatchee, the project of Crutchfield’s twin sister Katie—they became emblematic of the city’s thriving indie rock scene. They made a second record, 2013’s Surfing Strange, and Gilbride gained a reputation outside the band as a producer for Waxahatchee and Girlpool. But everything came crashing to a halt in 2015 when Crutchfield and Gilbride’s romantic relationship ended. Soon, so did Swearin’.

Since then, the band’s members have stayed busy. Crutchfield released a solo record, 2017’s Tourist in This Town, toured with Waxahatchee, and moved to Los Angeles. Gilbride remained in Philly, where he built a recording studio outside of the city and started a new songwriting project called Missing Earth. Bolt got behind the drum kit for another album with Philly pals Radiator Hospital, ran a screenprinting shop, and continued on with his DIY label, Stupid Bag. Spencer has since departed the group.

In mid-2017, Crutchfield, Gilbride, and Bolt began toying with the idea of reviving Swearin’. “All the issues that we had fixed themselves with age and space,” Crutchfield says. An invitation to join Superchunk on tour in the spring of this year set a pressing deadline for the band’s third album, Fall Into the Sun, finally released last week by Merge Records. As its title suggests, the LP captures a sense of cleansing-by-fire. In order to be reborn and thrive, Swearin’ as we once knew it had to crumble.

Crutchfield, Gilbride, and Bolt called up Pitchfork last month to discuss Swearin’ 2.0.

Pitchfork: How did you know you were ready to begin making music together again?

Allison Crutchfield: The conversation about doing Swearin’ again started out as kind of a joke, but there were some very real feelings about it. The three of us had a moment backstage at the release show for Waxahatchee’s Out in the Storm. We were kinda drunk, we had all our friends around us and we were like, “What if we did this band again but we eliminate the things that make us feel shitty?” During the Out in the Storm tour, I talked to Mac [McCaughan] from Superchunk [and Merge]—I knew that he was a Swearin’ fan—and I told him that we were thinking of working on another record. He texted me about a month or two later and asked if Swearin’ wanted to go on tour with Superchunk early next year, and that gave us a deadline. I don’t think Superchunk did this on purpose, but they unintentionally lit the fire under our asses.

In the previous iteration of Swearin’, you prided yourselves on working democratically and collaboratively. But by the time you broke up, that system had crumbled. How did you ensure that the band’s dynamic was fair and inclusive this time around?

AC: A big thing for me that immediately made the dynamic easier is that in the course of the last five years, I have gained a lot of confidence as a producer and songwriter. When Swearin’ started, I think I was 22, and I hadn’t been playing guitar or writing songs for very long. Not to anyone’s fault, but I felt like Kyle had a lot of confidence in that setting and I didn’t yet. So I would take a step back and then have a hard time asserting myself in a recording setting. But because I’ve had a lot more experience over the last few years, that level of confidence and knowledge made me feel like I was on more of an equal playing field. So for me, coming into my own fixed the dynamic issues. The three of us, for the most part, have always had an easy time communicating with each other. So I think that, mixed with a little bit of distance and growth on our own as people, it was weirdly easy to come together to do this thing that we all love.

When did you first get together to rehearse the songs and play them together?

AC: Pretty much when we recorded. I think I flew to Philly in January and we were trying to have the record done by late March. Kyle had drums with mics set up and I would teach Jeff a song, play through it a few times, and then we would track it. Kyle had done a record like that previously and thought it could sound pretty fresh. Since Jeff had the demos already, he knew the general vibe of what we were going for.