Minus the Bear drummer Erin Tate is tired of talking about the group’s reputation for bringing humor to its music.

The subject was unavoidable on the band’s early albums — the 2002 full-length CD Highly Refined Pirates and the EPs Bands Like It When You Yell ‘Yar’ at Them and They Make Beer Commercials Like This — especially with song titles like “Kickin’ It Like a Wild Donkey” and “Hey Wanna Throw Up.”

But those times began a-changing as soon as the laughter died down. “We were (seen as) this kind of jokey band, and we’ve never really been that way,” Tate said. “We’ve always taken our music very seriously and taken things very seriously. But it’s not the way things were coming across because of that, which is admittedly our own fault. But we just wanted to take a turn toward ‘hey, listen to our music,’ as opposed to talking about our song titles.”

In reality, there was reason to notice the music, even on the early albums. And anyone who has heard the Seattle-based group’s two most recent CDs — the 2005 album, Menos el Oso, and the newly released Planet of Ice — will know there’s nothing overly funny about the song titles or the music, though they are both quite interesting and entertaining.

In fact, Minus the Bear makes some of the most intriguing and category-defying music of any band today. Planet of Ice is the strongest effort yet by the group, which includes Tate, singer Jake Snider, guitarist David Knudson, bassist Cory Murchy and keyboardist Alex Rose.

Minus the Bear plays pop-rock music, but not in the sugar-sweet vein of Fall Out Boy, Fountains of Wayne or Green Day. The songs certainly have hooks, but the melodies to the Planet of Ice songs “Knights,” “Burying Luck” and “Dr. L’Ling” are angular and built around intertwining guitar and keyboard lines. The kind of guitar riffs that many bands use as foundations are employed sparingly within the band’s enticing and smartly constructed songs.

“I just feel like every year that goes on we get more and more used to playing with each other, and we get more and more used to what we want out of our music as a band, collectively,” Tate said. “We just grow stronger as musicians collectively and I think the [new] record benefited a lot more than anything in our past. I feel like every record that we do gets better.”

The music on Planet of Ice sounds like a natural progression from Menos el Oso, with more of an epic feel thanks to extended tracks such as “Lotus (v2)” and “Dr. L’Ling.”

But the actual songwriting approach used on the CD differed notably from the band’s other albums, on which Tate and Knudson were the primary songwriters. On Planet of Ice, the process evolved into a true team effort.

“This record was a lot more of a collaborative thing between the five of us, where everyone was around, everyone contributed way more ideas and everyone was there from the start of the song until the end of the song,” Tate said. “There were definitely songs on Oso that everyone was around for, sure. But this record was way more [collaborative], and I personally feel the record is 100 times better for that reason. I feel like the record is way more cohesive and way more put together because of that.”

Another contrast is that Minus the Bear didn’t use as much sampling, looping and overdubbing on Planet of Ice, which was produced by Matt Bayles and Chris Common, as it did on Menos el Oso. As a result, Tate said the new songs have been a bit easier to translate to a live setting.

“We pretty much have been able to do it roughly like the record,” Tate said. “There’s some tripling and quadrupling of vocal stuff that’s impossible to pull off, but for the most part, musically we’ve been able translate it and pull it off.”
 

And while Planet of Ice material makes up a good chunk of the live set, Minus the Bear isn’t ignoring its earlier works in its concerts.

“We wrote a couple of different set lists, with a few songs from each of the old records, and then about half of the set is the new record,” he said. “There are some songs from Highly Refined Pirates in there, and some songs from Oso.”

Minus the Bear will perform at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 15 at the Culture Room, 3045 N. Federal Highway, Fort Lauderdale. Tickets are $16. Call 954-564-1074.