The Midnight Juggernauts return with their second record; singer Vincent Vendetta talks about the group’s new single, new sound and CMJ.

Thus, it’s of little surprise to reach singer and keyboardist Vincent Vendetta in L.A., where the band has stopped in between New York and Australia to squeeze in a gig before heading back Down Under. It’s been an exciting, whirlwind past few weeks for the Juggernauts. For starters, they’ve just come off of a series of crazy shows during the music industry’s Fall Break, CMJ.

“It was pretty awesome and chaotic,” Vincent says. “It was just non-stop showcases. You don’t get a chance to do a sound-check and then you have to quickly get up there and play. So it could be good and it could be bad.”

They’ve also clocked in serious time in New York (when not performing or hitting up cozy hot-spots like Little Frankie’s and Cabin) doing press for their new, as-yet-untitled album (to be released in early 2010) and “This New Technology” (watch the video and download the track for free here) — the first single off of the record. Upon its release, the song rocketed into the Internet-stratosphere, garnering massive buzz and spending several days as the most blogged-about track on taste-making sites like the Hype Machine.

“This New Technology” is an electronica opera — it’s sweeping, epic, deep and rollicking. It’s a prog-heavy opus that takes the listener on a journey through musical highs and lows, delving into darker lyrical territory examining death and the underworld. Some bloggers termed it Beatle-esque; it definitely could be the grandchild of Radiohead‘s “Paranoid Android.” Like Dystopia, which delivered intense dancefloor gems like “Into The Galaxy,” there are still strong beats and it’s still dance-y.

Like most sophomore albums, there’s been an evolution in Midnight Juggernauts’s sound. And like many sophomore albums, this comes complements of all that time they clocked on the road.

“It’s still very dance-tastic,” Vince says. “There are still synthesizers and analog equipment in there, lots of toys that we’ve been playing with, but it’s kind of more from a live approach…it’s a lot more live and raw, like a band playing together in a room, just because we were playing live and touring a lot. It probably influenced our approach to this new record and how we recorded.”

The album was recorded mostly back in Melbourne, where the group has a little home studio. Several songs, however, were formulated from jam sessions at a friend’s holiday home off the northern coast of New South Wales. Unlike Dystopia, which they produced themselves, they enlisted the help of Christopher Moore, who has worked with TV On The Radio and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

“We thought it’d be interesting to have his mind in there, like a fourth person in the studio to bounce ideas off of,” Vincent says, explaining how Moore entered the production picture. “I think one thing was that he kind of encouraged us to let go. With Dystopia, we spent a lot more time in the studio and had a lot of ideas we were after. But on this one, we let go of it all and let more space in there to have happy accidents to come through on the record. It feels a lot more alive and raw because of that approach.”

There will be several opportunities for Midnight Juggernauts to test out their new sound and new material — they’re touring around Australia for the remainder of the year and are already booked for this year’s Big Day Out festival in mid-January. Although they’ll be close to home, vegemite in reach, Vincent says being back on tour will require a little re-adjustment.

“I miss regular sleeping patterns and my own bed,” Vincent says. “When you’re traveling so much, you end up in a new hotel every night and somtimes you wkae up in the morning and you’re trying to remember what town you’re in.”

“When I went back to Australia for the first time after being on the road for nine months,” he recalls. “It was the first night in my own bedroom and I woke up in the morning thinking that I had a lobby call.”