It was 20 years ago today

As The Wrens celebrates their 20th anniversary as a band, their legacy of releasing only three albums in those two decades will continue to be one of the better known facts of the band.

But six years since the release of the its critically heralded and popularly adored 2003 LP The Meadowlands, the New Jersey band says new releases are on the way.

"Cause we only had three albums in the last 20 years, my wager is that we'll have three new albums in the next two," lead singer Charles Bissell said. "We might end up going out in a Guided By Voices-like blaze of glory, cranking out a record every six months and then we can call it quits."

Washington will get one of the band's somewhat rare concerts tonight, when the band returns to the Black Cat for the first time in years.

The group's members – almost all in their 40s – have embraced the almost comically significant element of time in their evolution as a band, making note of their age but not letting it burden them.

"We sure make a lot of jokes about it," Bissell said. "It's not like a governing thing for us or anything. The weird part is when you get old enough past the median age for indie rock club going, it's strangely no longer an issue. It kind of felt older at 32 or something, playing  to 20, 21-year-olds. You're just close enough that it seems kind of weird. But then you get so far past it, it becomes kind of ridiculous. Like, ‘I could have fathered you.' It's just funny.

And yet we're kind of more excited about being in a band now than we have in a long time – in years."

With the members now juggling babies and living apart (for much of the band's existence, the members all lived in the same house), time to make music seems to be in even scarcer supply than it did 10 years ago. But with positive attitudes about the band and the aid of modern technology, The Wrens look to have its next album out in the summer of 2010, Bissell said.

"We should be a lot more productive in the next couple years than we've ever been able to," he said.

Not until after The Meadowlands did the band stop using analog tape recorders to record its music. Now, with the help of computer programming and hard drives, the band has been able to record much more efficiently than in years past.

"There was an intermediate digital tape phase we were stuck in way longer than anyone else was," Bissell said. "For us, it was kind of crippling. If you wanted a song a certain way, it was really hard to get there and try things out on the way there.

"Sometimes you can't see your own weaknesses, the way you set things up. We didn't really grow up using computers in any kind of way. If you started a band now, you'd just assume right of the bat you'd start off with GarageBand on your Mac or something. It's so easy and it's right there. But I didn't even really use a computer until 10 years ago because I took a day job. And now those things have changed a lot. Recording stuff changed so much even in the last eight, five years. Like everything else."

But with an optimistic recording schedule ahead of them, the band plans on enjoying its anniversary and the few shows it has lined up for the rest of the year, including the Washington show.

"We've always had a wonderful time at the Black Cat," Bissell said. "That people still show up to see our band six years after our last album, or whatever it is, is very flattering, so we like D.C. an awful lot because of it."

The Wrens will play at the Black Cat tonight. Doors are 9 p.m. Tickets cost $15.

rhiggins@umdbk.com