Stand up: In the Pines debuts new material – and a new approach to playing live – at its first show in nine months

Two rehearsals prior to their show at the Record Bar — their first performance in nine months — members of In the Pines made a sudden, jarring change.

They stood up.

Since starting out, four members of the Kansas City band have remained glued to their chairs in concert. The two who have always stood — the violinist and the violist — both sing.

I first saw In the Pines about three years ago at the Brick. I arrived partway into their set. The place was packed. To get inside, I had to stride through the 3 feet or so between the stage and the wall of crowd.

On my right, as I slouched in front of the stage, was Pines lead singer and acoustic guitarist Brad Hodgson. He was lurching side to side in his chair like a demonic in a Pentecostal church, acoustic guitar bouncing in lap, head thrashing backward, feet stomping in primal rhythm. The top of my head felt entirely peeled off by the slicing, dark and desperately beautiful strings.

The band released its self-titled debut in 2006, a gorgeous collection of songs, written mostly by Hodgson, that evoke a lost, rustic America of rural isolation, beauty and decay. Influenced by the narratives of old-timey folk and blues, Hodgson creates characters and scenes that wouldn’t be out of place in a William Faulkner story.

Hodgson’s voice is backed by a chorus: bassist and singer Darren Welch; guitarist Auggie Wolber; drummer Mike Myers; and Laurel Morgan (violin and vocals) and Hannah Kendle (viola and vocals), who compose the string parts that turn In the Pines’ acoustical jam into a dramatic production, a soundtrack to the group’s lyrical tales.

Last year, the German label Arctic Rodeo released In the Pines in Europe, and in May, the group played 10 shows in 10 cities across Germany and Austria (some with labelmates and fellow locals the New Amsterdams).

Things got off to a bad start at the first show when another band’s tour manager stepped on Morgan’s violin, damaging it irreparably. The accident not only devastated Morgan but also shook the whole group.

“I’m not superstitious, but I was totally freaking out,” Myers remembers.

Morgan borrowed a fiddle, and the Pines ended up playing what they felt was one of their all-time best shows.

Gathered just after a sound check on the Record Bar patio, the band looks and acts the part of freshly recharged musicians ready to rock. Though the European tour brought them closer as friends, the group played songs that were, by that point, at least two years old. A break was in order, and now In the Pines is back in the studio working up songs for LP number two.

Welch describes the new tracks — including the six that the band will debut at the Record Bar — as shorter and more to the point than the longer, epic songs on the first album. They’re products of collaboration, with all members contributing to the writing instead of just Hodgson. “The music’s fresh, the attitude’s fresh,” Welch says.

After the night’s two opening bands have played — lowdown and rather lackluster stoner-country band the Blessed Broke and lively, modern-bluegrass-meets-indie-folk sextet Oriole Post, led by talented new singer-songwriter Rachel Bonar — the crowd is feeling the heat on this second day of spring.

This time, with absolutely zero space between the front line of the crowd and the edge of the stage, In the Pines (everyone standing for the first time), delivers a set that makes use of all that newfound energy.

At the climax of the new song “Sinner,” about a traveling evangelist whose woman leaves him, Hodgson uses his physical freedom to careen and sway far back from his microphone, bellowing Don’t go! Don’t go! while Morgan and Kendle wrench keening notes out of their bows and strings.

Many of the new songs contain parts that were written within days of the show, including some of the instrumental lines in “Math Rock” (a working title, thank God), which is laced with dexterity-demanding changes.

The set closes with selections from the first album, favorites such as “Dress on Fire,” “It’s on the Table” and “Never Say Too Much.” An encore is demanded and given.

Though it’s hard to judge from one gig in a hot, crowded and noisy bar, the new songs do seem more lively. It doesn’t hurt, of course, that the former pine-riding Pines are playing on their feet now.

Afterward, the band has only a few minutes to chat with the folks who have come out. One fan who has bought the German-issued vinyl version of the first record is rushing around to get all members of the band to sign it before the bar closes.

Signing autographs in your own hometown: You know you’ve arrived when that starts to happen.