Fresh perspective fuels Death From Above 1979’s reunion, new album

Look at a photograph of Death From Above 1979 — or, better yet, take in one of its reliably rowdy concerts — and you’ll feel confident in saying the band consists of two members: drummer Sebastien Grainger, who also sings, and bassist Jesse F. Keeler.

That’s the lineup that formed this wily dance-punk duo in Toronto in 2001, and the group went on to release an acclaimed 2004 debut, “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine.” Built from scouring bass riffs, propulsive grooves and disarmingly tender lyrics that seemed to contradict the noise, the album was an instant underground hit, which didn’t mean it could keep the band together: In 2006, Grainger and Keeler announced they’d split up, casualties of creative disagreements as well as the exhaustion of life on the road.

Eight years later, Death From Above 1979 is back, the members having set aside their differences to reunite in 2011 for shows that included a blistering performance at that year’s Coachella festival. But although the visible evidence suggests they’re still a two-man operation — there they are pictured on the cover of their new album, “The Physical World” — Grainger and Keeler say they’re no longer alone.

“The whole time we were away, the band completely existed without us,” Grainger explained recently. “It kept growing in our absence. So when we started playing again, it was almost like we took it on as a third thing.”

It didn’t sell especially well, but among musicians “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine” exerted a strong influence, helping to shape the sound of dance-leaning rock bands such as Klaxons and Crystal Castles as well as rock-inspired dance acts like Justice. As half of MSTRKRFT, the scuzzy electronic outfit he formed after Death From Above’s breakup, Keeler continued to make an impact; that group’s fuzzed-out remixes of songs by Usher and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs anticipated the harsh but seductive textures of Kanye West’s “Yeezus.”

“They were ahead of the curve, even more than I noticed at the time,” said Dave Sardy, who produced “The Physical World” and has also worked with LCD Soundsystem and Red Hot Chili Peppers. Sardy said listeners were attracted to the band because it was “coming from a distinct point of view. They had something unique to say.”

Yet once they were back in business, Grainger and Keeler found themselves working against that reputation, even as it opened doors like those at Coachella and Warner Bros. Records, which released the group’s new album this week.

“It’s been really weird to talk about the past so much,” Keeler said over dinner last month at a Burbank steakhouse. Earlier that day he and Grainger had done a string of interviews at their label’s headquarters, part of a promotional blitz that included a sold-out gig at the Troubadour, where Death From Above (the “1979” came in response to a threatened lawsuit from another group with the same name) played for an audience of rabid fans and cool-hunting suits.

“Normally we don’t talk about the past at all,” said Grainger, who recently moved with his wife to Los Angeles. (Keeler, also married and with two young children, still lives in Toronto.) “We’re not glory days-type guys.”

Indeed, the duo seems most engaged on “The Physical World” when pushing into fresh territory, beyond the bruising aggro-disco of “Cheap Talk” and “Right on, Frankenstein!”

“Virgins,” for instance, rides a relaxed boogie tempo that might win over the Queens of the Stone Age crowd, while in the title track a sludgy Black Sabbath-style lick comes accompanied by a delicate synth pattern. And then there’s “White Is Red,” a surprisingly poignant almost-ballad about a teenage couple grappling with what appears to be an unplanned pregnancy.

“Some bands have that great first record, but maybe they don’t quite have the songs yet,” said Jeff Sosnow, an A&R executive at Warner Bros. Comparing “You’re a Woman, I’m a Machine” to similarly intense — and similarly influential — debuts by At the Drive-In and the Refused, Sosnow described Death From Above’s first album as a “cathartic explosion.” Yet the new record, he added, is craftier and more thoughtful.

“They have different aspirations,” he said, one of which is to find a healthier way to fit the band into their lives. As unattached twentysomethings, Grainger and Keeler put Death From Above before all else, they said, which fueled those full-throttle live shows but also led to the premature burnout that caused them to split.

“We were like that poster with the baby cat that says ‘Hang in there,’” Keeler said with a laugh. “We never said no to anything that was put in front of us.”

Now in their mid-30s, the two are pacing themselves ahead of a world tour that will launch next month in Germany and stop at L.A.’s Regent Theatre on Nov. 14.

“Near the end of the last time, there was this voice inside me that started saying, ‘This band is not all I am!’” Grainger said. “But then being apart from it, I started to appreciate it in a whole new light. There’s me, there’s Jesse, and then there’s what we do together.”

mikael.wood@latimes.com