The Social Animals are a full time, van-living young band. They speak through elegantly sarcastic, thoughtful lyrics with memorable melodies splattered across a canvas of indie rock instrumentation. They don’t do backflips at their live shows or slide across their knees into guitar solos. Instead, they play their music passionately and honestly, carrying both the intensity to move feet and the delicacy to keep them still. Between songs, their dry commentary on the status of their lives and the world around them appeals to the type of person who, perhaps, spends time actually reading through a band bio.

Releasing their debut EP, “Formative Years” in late summer of 2016, The Social Animals have laid a sturdy foundation for the character and direction of the band. Songs like “Let Me Go” marry the grittiness of an honest band cramped in a Chevy Express with the pop sensibility of Tom Petty. “I Guess In America” offers a tongue-in-cheek outlook on the process of dealing with personal sadness under the seemingly comfortable umbrella of the U.S., and the privileges (or lack thereof) that come with it.

Unlike the shaky uneasiness of their V8 engine, these boys show no signs of stopping. Climbing from the gurgling depths of Wal-Mart parking lots and rattling beer cans, the band sits calmly atop the rubble with a full-length album in their back pocket. Recorded almost completely live at Modest Mouse’s “Ice Cream Party Studios”, the album is poised to make 2017 the most promising year of the band’s career. Produced with help from Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, Deer Tick), the album, coined “Early Twenties”, builds upon the groundwork of “Formative Years” and takes the band to new places both physically and sonically.