For a city as musically prolific as Nashville, there is an ironic homogeneity present in the artists and labels that garner the majority of acclaim outside of Davidson County. Perhaps it's simple economics: Music City has been a country, Christian and, to a lesser extent, rock, hit-making machine for so many generations that the marketplace of music fandom expects nothing more from the city - despite its diverse and overwhelming reservoir of talent. Sure, Paramore and Kings of Leon have improved Nashville's one-note image, but careful observers can't help but wonder if the city's vibrant indie scene will ever crawl out from the domineering, slick-music shadow.

Milktooth, a trio whose melodic blend of cathartic noise-pop that NPR recently dubbed "mesmerizing," are extraordinarily familiar with this dynamic. Prior to crafting their current sound, Ian Leach (guitars), Noah Denney (drums/percussion) and Michael Ford Jr. (bass, recently departed from MT) performed as the backing band for frontman David Condos and his radio-friendly solo material. The affable crooner had no sooner accepted his diploma from Belmont - the same university that counts country powerhouses Brad Paisley and Tricia Yearwood as alumni - before his music was being licensed in big budget film and reality TV. It nudged Condos inches closer to Nashville's holy grail, the ability to pay bills with songs.

From 2005 to 2008, the David Condos band was immersed in Nashville's commercial ebullience, playing major label showcases, gaining representation from the high-powered New York law firm owned by Clive Davis' son and touring incessantly with the help of the Agency Group. Despite how robust the aroma of success became, however, the culmination of 2008's Like Wolves EP invited an air of creative change and the increasingly collaborative temperament of the band resulted in a significant departure from Condos' blockbuster sound and aspiration. With the barrier between songwriter and live performers removed, the evolved band was at a liberating crossroads.

"We just wanted to start over in a way. That's why we decided Milktooth was a perfect name for what we were doing coming out of David's solo stuff," says Leach. "The new songs represented a drastic departure musically from his previous material." Leach suggests the name Milktooth could be interpreted as a metaphor for the band's effort to develop an adult set of musical "teeth."

Listening to Milktooth's eponymous, self-released EP and follow-up 7", Halloween in Santa Ana, both released in 2009, it's clear the band worked with great intention to delineate new from old while preserving the best pieces of Condos' compositional sensibility. In the same way a skillful filmmaker deploys a disciplined methodology to create successfully within multiple genres, Milktooth confidently builds upon its known strengths. It dispels the vain urge to shock or confuse Condos' existing fan base by forcing them to imbibe the evocative tonic of change. Continuing a long-standing collaboration with seasoned Nashville producer Tom Laune (R.E.M., Bruce Springsteen), who was behind Condos' Smoking City and Like Wolves releases, the band emphasized their prudence, opting to embrace Laune's trusted guidance rather than shift production duties for the sake of novelty.

The maturity present in the EP's standouts, "Your Arrows" and "Sovereignty," emanates naturally, repudiating any sense that Milktooth is a relatively new band. Sidestepping the assumed missteps of most virginal artists, Milktooth's initial output is cohesive and rich, which is a testament to their shared journey and exacting production aesthetic. Even the EP's cover art, which was beautifully hand-illustrated by Nashville-based Lauren Rolwing, indicates the band's deliberate effort to produce something textured and archetypal; a brand more than a band.

"Quality over quantity is a dying model that we adhere to very strictly," says Leach. "Our biggest challenge is figuring out how to connect with fans who are increasingly impatient and overstimulated." Speaking about Milktooth's decision to record to an old 16-track tape machine, the answer was no less measured. "We were trying to get across a point," says Leach. "Departure, newness, freshness - we wanted to communicate the direction we were headed, with no confusion that we were now a band. I wanted to make a record that sounded big and warm and natural, just lived-in. Not too overproduced and polished with 500 Pro Tools tracks." Condos elaborates, "We definitely made some conscious decisions when we set out to record the EP. Aside from using the tape machine, we also wanted the songs to have more of a 'live' feel, so we recorded the basic parts together, with very few overdubs coming later. Both decisions forced us to think of ways to simplify things and focus on making each track really count."

Having slept just feet from one another as roommates at Belmont, the familial dynamic between Condos and Leach illuminates Milktooth's "lived-in" quality with ease. Condos, raised in a conservative home that limited his access to most secular music, stands in stark contrast to Leach, who is often moving on from a band just as Pitchfork is burnishing them with "Best New Music" status. But Condos' consumptive naivete in his formative years has proved an elegant complement to Leach's musical ADD, their "opposites attract" balance informing some of the most promising indie rock to come out of Nashville in recent memory.

"When we met we were actually quite different," laughs Leach. "David was really into Stevie Wonder and anything worse that spawned from people like Stevie. He was aware of the original greats, but I won't lie, he liked Maroon 5." Condos, the gracious frontman, counters this statement with,"Real cool, man." Still, Leach continues: "I was into more obscure stuff, but we met in the middle with a lot of the British rock that was hitting at the time. You have to say Coldplay, but also bands like Travis, Doves and Elbow. I think I changed David's life when I introduced him to the Veils. During that period, he did a nice job of sorting through the chaos and a tremendous bond formed between the two of us. It really was a High Fidelity moment."

Just as British rock and a devotion to Kevin Shields and Nick Cave helped cement Milktooth's creative accord, a reverence for words binds the band together. As admirers of Salinger, Orwell and E.E. Cummings, Milktooth instills a strong literary property in its lyrics, chiefly written by Condos. The spiritual and forlorn imagery tastefully adjoins the brood of their deceptively tenebrous sound. Greater than the sum of their parts, Milktooth's songs are romantic and inquisitive, crafted with so much of the heart that's too often missing from Nashville's hit factories.

The same thoughtful approach to progress that colors Milktooth's music, lyrics and visual aesthetic is also being leveraged in the band's plans for the future. Resting on their experiences being groomed for commercial success during Condos' solo years - and cognizant of how the industry has rapidly evolved since then - the band is doing much of its promotional work in-house, relying on a slow-growth model that values sustainability over vogue nearsightedness. According to Condos, though the band is hardly shunning label support, Milktooth's immediate priority is creating memorable music for use in short-form release, licensing and live performance.

In a city that's often perceived by outsiders as simply a bastion of cowboys, holy rollers and Daughtry rockers, Milktooth could be in a unique position to reverse current ignorance and shed light on Nashville's indie scene that's just as multi-dimensional as hipster-approved enclaves Austin, NYC, Chicago and LA. Their sound is familiar, yet solitary, and if to-date reaction is any indication, Milktooth's first two releases have only endeared Condos' mainstream-bent fanbase to his impassioned bellow all the more. It implies the sheer talent of the band in addition to a broader shift in the industry. Perhaps as a result of file-sharing, or as a rejection of popular music's rampant mediocrity, the marketplace has demanded at least some return to nuance. This has paved the way for bands like Arcade Fire and the Shins to grace Billboard next to Beyonce and, ahem, Maroon 5. Although charting no longer guarantees musicians can drop their day jobs, this broad indie awareness is nonetheless refreshing and ripe for Milktooth.