Ryan Laurey

www.ryanmontbleauband.com

Tonight the Ryan Montbleau Band will play at the Iron Horse Music Hall at 20 Center St. in Northampton. The show is set to start at 11 p.m., with soul musician Jesse Dee opening at 10 p.m. If tonight’s show is anything like the last few times Ryan Montbleau and his band have come through the Iron Horse, their set is sure to be a crowd pleaser.

Hailing from Boston, the music of Montbleau’s band is best described as folk-blues Americana, infusing a strong grass-root sound. Performing an average of over 200 shows each year, the band has managed to gain more and more momentum. Their fan base is growing along with their prolificacy. So far front man Ryan has three albums under his belt; two solo albums, “Begin” (2002) and “Stages” (2003) and one official full-band release, “One Fine Color” (2006). But according to the band, the best is yet to come. The indie-quintet is currently in the studio finishing up the recording of their second full-band release album, which at the moment is untitled. Montbleau bassist, Matt Gianarros, says that their new creation will be different than their last.

“It’s not as ‘rootsy.’ It’s still a singer/songwriter album, and it still has the Ryan Montbleau Band sound, but it’s definitely got more of a modern flair,” said Gianarros. The album, which is tentatively scheduled to come out in October of this year, is in response to Montbleau band fans who’ve been craving new material.

“With our last album, we’d been playing the song for one and a half years. It was seasoned, and all our fans knew those songs very well,” said Gianarros, who also mentioned that tonight’s set will only feature one or two songs from the new album. The band’s reluctance about exposing too much of their new material is because they want fans to appreciate the fresh sounds at the time of the album’s fall release.

While there’s still touching up that needs to be done, mainly mixing string and horn arrangements, the album’s recording is finished. “We went in for about ten days. Everything’s pretty much done. It’s been great; the sounds we were getting were beautiful,” said Gianarros.

While not a concept album, Gianarros said it does have a lot of themes that continuously occur, such as losing a loved one.

“A friend of ours passed away not so long ago, the end of December