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In early 2016, NE-HI faced the age-old dilemma of every band good enough to generate buzz from an exciting debut record: what to do next.

The question was so difficult to answer that the Chicago garage rock outfit eventually scrapped most of its first attempt at a follow-up and returned to the studio to start again. The problem, said guitarist and vocalist Jason Balla, was that they were thinking too much.

"We weren't intentionally setting out to make something complicated," Balla said in a telephone interview ahead of a show Wednesday at Kilby Court. "I feel like if you're trying to do that, that's when you'll fail. You can't force it."

Too much intent seems to be main killer of what still makes NE-HI exciting to Balla, who describes the band's origins as a "happy failure."

The four members got together originally to help score a friend's film project that would never get made. But those early practice sessions yielded enough to keep Balla, Mikey Wells (guitar, vocals), James Weir (bass) and Alex Otake (drums) playing together.

"We stumbled upon what the band is now," Balla said. "Honestly it was just that first practice. … It was just kind of immediate magic."

The band came up in 2014 playing in Chicago's DIY space Animal Kingdom and later at the Empty Bottle, where they got swept up in the energetic garage revival that defined the local scene.

"At the time it was kind of an introduction of what being part of a real music community was," Balla said. "It was super liberating to be really creative and messy with it."

After a successful self-titled debut, NE-HI knew the follow-up would likely be heard by more people, and the pressure to improve was acute.

"The music industry itself was a new factor we hadn't ever had to really consider before," Balla said. "There was this period of us wrestling with a few of those things, but coming out the other side with clear heads."

Many of the songs on the new album, "Offers," hint at the stress the band was feeling at the time.

"Come and make a record like your dear old dad," Wells sings on the single "Buried on the Moon." "Yeah, we'll give you all the money then make you feel sad."

Self-doubt creeps in as well in the track "Out of Reach," in which Balla asks, "Do you feel like you're in over your head?"

But if the lyrics tell the story of the anxieties of a band on the precipice of something greater, it's the instrumentation that finally takes them over the edge. NE-HI's breakthrough in recording the album came when the band decided to record live, with the vocals being the only element added later.

Balla said playing organically in the studio brought back that magic the members felt when they started playing together.

"It's not necessarily like we're going back to a place that we once were," Balla said. "It's a place that's always there that we have to let ourselves get into."

As a result of that creative spark, "Offers" finds its voice through its instrumentation. The complementary guitar work of Balla and Wells weaves well with the steady rhythm section provided by Weir and Otake, unveiling a musical complexity not usually seen in similar acts in the stripped-down garage scene.

"The way we happen to work as a band is certainly about evoking something through the tones and rhythms all four of us can lock into," Balla said. "What can be expressed verbally is informed by what is happening musically."

What lyrics there are in the opening track, "Palm of Hand," for example, mostly serve to break up lengthy guitar interludes that propel the song forward.

It's a dynamic that makes for an engaging listen, providing previously unheard instrumental detours with each new hearing. Yet, somehow, NE-HI's virtuosity remains slightly obscured by layers of garage-pop grime and shuffling rhythms.

Think of it as a jam band with a deadline.

"It's slightly more thought out and structured," Balla said, "but it still leaves opportunity for an adventure with each of our own instruments." —

NE-HI

With Peach Dream and Sales & Co.

When • Wednesday, April 19, 7 p.m.

Where • Kilby Court, 741 S. Kilby Court, Salt Lake City

Tickets • $10; Ticketfly