Come Wind. There’s a name some of you haven’t heard too much of lately. Or at all.

Well, let’s change that. We’re premiering some new music from them today – a single with an A and B side they’re calling  Come & Go. Listen to them right now and get up to speed on the goings on of the band while you’re at it.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/173547245″ /] [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/173547243″  /]

The northeast Ohio indie-progressive band made waves a couple of years ago with two critically acclaimed EPs – Wanderer O’Wanderer and Grow My Roots. The latter got almost universal praise from a variety of indie and more mainstream outlets, most notably spawning two hit radio singles – “Rend Your Heart” and “Sleep.” Come Wind can hardly be called radio rock, but their raw, passionate form of rock with soaring composition moved many. They even landed tours with House of Heroes and Twenty One Pilots.

Then, silence. From our point of view anyway.

Early 2014 the band posted a video updating everyone on where Come Wind stood. They hinted on lots of internal changes and mentioned publicly for the first time that singer Nick Sayre left the band. Then in the spring they announced a comeback show of sorts at Musica in Akron, OH. Unbeknownst to most at the time, this would kick off a chain of events introducing the next stage of the band.

Late in the summer, they released a live session for a new tune called “Not This.” I thought I saw two new faces in the video – but only spied one in the new promo pic. Perhaps I was seeing things. But how would I find out? I would get a chance to discuss the above and more with the entirety of the five- yes, five-piece group.

“You nailed it.” I was told. Please welcome John and Trevor to the fold.

John will effectively take the place of Nick – singing and playing guitar. But it will be different. Obviously new people mean a new vibe in the mix. John didn’t elaborate on how his presence would change things but Aaron mentioned he was excited to see how some of John’s songwriting shapes the future of the band. John is a lifelong contemporary of sorts of Aaron, having grown up in the same church as him. “I came out of the womb going to that church!” he bemused. His musical history comprises of being a drummer initially – even playing in a band that would do gigs alongside Come Wind periodically. One memorable show was a house show that got shut down by the cops – ironically during Come Wind’s last song.

Trevor, the other new member, is a man of few words. “My story is nowhere near as elaborate as John’s,” he quipped. He came to know the band through mutual friends. And he will play bass. What of Tal? He will move into a role with keys, auxiliary percussion and other roles as needed.

So what of the three original members? What have they been up to? Why the silence for over a year and a half? “It’s fair to say it was member transition,” Aaron said. He and Ben went on to elaborate that when Nick left it wasn’t merely a matter of moving onto the next guy. There was a lot of soul searching and contemplating whether Come Wind could even continue at all. So what was the deciding factor in continuing? It’s a very simple answer. Love of the art. “The bottom line is… we love doing this,” asserts Aaron. Ben corroborated this – “Every job we have is not because of preference, we have it because it works with the lifestyle of being in a band.” Aaron works in a guitar store. Ben works with moving company. John and Trevor landscape. Tal is a barista (though currently he’s hanging out with his newlywed wife in Northern Ireland).

So Come Wind is still a thing! Tuned Up will go on record saying that you should be stoked about that.

Anyway, what does being active mean? “Pick up where we left off,” Ben said, to put things succinctly. That means touring and promoting a yet untitled full length record, to release roughly around summer of 2015. Included on the record will be “Come and Go,” half the single we are premiering today. The band wants to dedicate 2015 to promotion of said new record – hitting new markets in the US.  “There should be a steady flow of things creating buzz so we can get on some tours,” said Ben. These include two to be released videos to complement Come and Go. They have no formal touring plans yet, but one band they’ve all been digging lately is From Indian Lakes (“I’ve been listening to [them] for the past week and a half!” Tal chimed in) – a tour partnership with them would be mutually beneficial, in the bands opinion. Tuned Up concurs – see our review of Absent Sounds here. They’re not sure who’d they’d like to push from their home region – “All of the bands we’ve started out playing shows with have either moved away or quit being bands” Aaron said.

On the new material – the band was very clear on one thing. “Evaluate them as songs in their own right,” Aaron said, referring to Come & Go. On new material in general he had this to say: “The lyrics are very personal. We’re all still strong Christians and it’s still the center of my life.” They are not trying to make things more “coded” on purpose. They’re just writing what they feel they need to write about. “I want to write stuff I truly feel and identify with,” citing the book of Psalms as a source of inspiration – particularly those that are just people “expressing their thoughts.” The new stuff will still sound like Come Wind – just an inevitably different vibe.

So there you have it. You, a fan of Come Wind (or perhaps just a Tuned Up reader) should have some stuff to tide you over for awhile. What do you think of the new tracks?