Brandon Boyd of Incubus onstage at the 25th Annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas at The Forum in Los Angeles in Dec, 2014.

When Incubus appeared at night-one of KROQ’s Almost Acoustic Xmas this past Saturday, it marked the band’s first proper public show in a year.

The reason for the band’s absence from the live circuit is they’ve been heavily immersed in recording, which has gone well. Very well. “The recording has been fantastic, it’s been amazing,” Mike Einziger told Billboard.com.

As is so often the case, the recording has been going smoothly because the So Cal band, without a label home since their deal with Epic ended in 2012, has been working on their own schedule and with little pressure.

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“We didn’t have any plans to make this record,” Einziger said. “Just having no horizon to look at was important for us. We needed that.”

And now the quintet, who just finalized a deal with Island Records this week, can work according to their own vision, which includes a non-traditional release. “We’re planning on releasing two installments that will total an album, two EPs,” Einziger explained. “We’re hoping to put out the first one in February or March, then the summer.”

Einziger filled us in on a few songs on the two EPs, which the band is producing. “We’ve always been a self-reliant band,” he said.

Incubus debuted the lead single, “Trust Fall,” at Almost Acoustic Xmas. Of the song, Einziger said, “It’s pretty indicative of where we are now. It’s pretty ambitious.”

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Einziger said fans can expect diversity from the new material. “Most of the music we’ve written is high energy,” he said. “[But] we’ve written our slowest song, but also our heaviest song.” The latter is “Make Out Party.”

There’s a track called “Dance Like You’re Dumb,” which Einziger calls, “Our version of a loud aggressive rock song. It’s definitely not what someone would expect from us.”

Einziger is happy with the diversity on the two EPs. “This is what the band sounds like in 2014, 2015.”