On their third full-length ​Remembering The Rockets ​(out 7/26 via Tiny Engines)​, Strange Ranger continue to excel at translating the way intimacy can feel so overwhelmingly gigantic. With a dozen releases across their 10 years as a band, the Philly-via-Portland-via-Montana group, currently featuring Isaac Eiger (guitars, vocals), Fred Nixon (bass, piano, vocals), Nathan Tucker (drums), and Fiona Woodman (vocals), have traversed genres, moods, and textures while maintaining one important throughline: an exploration of closeness.

“Trying to close the distance between yourself and another person and wondering how much can really be done about that gap,” Eiger says. “​Sometimes you don't want to be close with others but you feel guilty, and sometimes you do but you can't.”

Their 2016 double-LP ​Rot Forever​ (which they released under the name Sioux Falls)​ ​was a 72-minute freakout that paired Built To Spill grandiosity with early Modest Mouse intensity. Many of the songs were six-minute treks that pushed guitar/bass/drum indie-rock to its breaking point, but the band was singing about crawling into bed and running back a lifetime’s worth of minor interactions.

After putting that