Hot Hot Heat are in Los Angeles recording their second album with producer Dave Sardy (Jet, the Thrills). The Canadian four-piece plans to wrap the set in August and release it by Thanksgiving.

Most of the thirteen-track album was written over the past few months north of Victoria, at the home of guitarist Dante DeCaro. "Dante lives in the middle of nowhere," frontman/keyboardist Steve Bays says. "He and his friends converted this old barn into a studio, so we wrote seventy-five percent of the songs there. There were literally horses right outside our door."

Despite the rural environment, the release -- set to include songs "Counterclockwise," "Middle of Nowhere," "48th Hour of a Two Day Night," "You Owe Me and IOU" and "Shame On You" -- will maintain the pop style found on Hot Hot Heat's debut. "The thing that we've aspired to do is to make it better musically," Bays says. "We've had a couple years of practice playing our instruments, and this is the first time I've been able to take singing seriously. It's less Eighties, less New Wave, less retro but way more catchier than the last one."

Bays' new romantic relationship has had a great impact on the lyrics. "I kind of fell in love," he says, "and I don't think I really had been in love in a long time. When you fall in love, you have to completely reinterpret the world."