The Roseline starts over again with Vast As Sky

Not all relationships end in dramatic fashion. Sometimes they crumble slowly, piecing off a bit at a time, until one day you wake up and not much is left. Colin Halliburton knows a little something about that slow burn. His Lawrence-based alt-country act the Roseline, which last released an album in 2008 (Lust for Luster), didn’t split up in a knock-down, drag-out melodramatic huff. Nobody stormed off a stage.

Over a beer outside at the Replay, Halliburton explains calmly that the band members simply were getting older. “It just happened that a couple of the members were just growing up, having kids,” he says, “life stuff.” Around that time, another of Halliburton’s long-term relationships — with his fiancée — also faded out. “Nothing bad,” he says, “just one of those things where you just kind of end up as roommates.” More life stuff.

Throughout the changes, Halliburton continued to write and hone his music, not expecting much to happen with the material. Yet, last year, things began to coalesce once again, as gradually as they had previously fallen apart. Producer Dustin Mapes, a friend of Halliburton’s, began recording pieces of the songs that Halliburton had written about the relationship with his fian­cée. Over time, friends (some of them former bandmates) started adding parts. “We’d do guitar one day,” Halliburton explains, “then it’d get put up for a month. Then someone would bring over a glockenspiel, and it’d be, like, why not?”

Compared with working in studios on the other albums, the relaxed pace and comfort of recording at home agreed with him. “This was a way better experience [than working in a studio],” Halliburton says. “Less about time … more about making tea in my own kitchen and then laying down a vocal track.” During the year of recording with Mapes, the number of contributors to the project grew to include Ehren Starks (keyboards), David Stamm (drums), Mike Alexander (guitar), Jeff Jackson (pedal steel), Jenny Maciaszek (bass), Amanda Cox (vocals) and Michelle Gaume (vocals and glockenspiel).

One evening, Halliburton chanced on a performance by Sarah Lee Guthrie at a late-night show. Impressed by her sound and feeling that his material was sonically akin to it, he reached out to her label, Ninth Street Opus, and blindly submitted a handful of the rough mixes that he and his friends had been working on. Contrary to nearly every experience he’d had with labels, Ninth Street Opus responded the next day with interest.

Over the next six months, Halliburton negotiated and worked with the Berkeley, California, label and emerged from the discussions with a freshly remixed and mastered version of the Roseline’s newest album, Vast as Sky, as well as tour support for the band on a jaunt through the Southwest and up the West Coast. Halliburton has amassed a new crew for the venture, including Seth Wiese (drums), Tyler Brown (bass) and Kris Losure (guitar).

Though recording has been easier this time around, performing remains a challenge for Halliburton, who suffers from the occasional panic attack while playing. “Some people are, you know, born for the stage,” he says with a laugh. “That is not me.” The personal nature of the material — he wrote many of the Vast as Sky songs following the end of his engagement — doesn’t make things any less awkward, especially locally. “It’s kind of weird because these songs are old to me now, but my friends will be like, Dude, are you still not over this?”

All signs point toward forward movement for Halliburton and the Roseline, which plays a Vast as Sky CD-release show at the Replay March 29.

The subsequent, nearly monthlong tour is Halliburton’s longest musical outing ever. “I just hope my voice lasts,” he says. Here’s to everything lasting just a little bit longer this time around.