Most people assume that when a band makes it-that is, reaches a critical mass of listeners, where shows across the country get packed, where the big festivals come calling, where placement on year-end lists seems preemptively settled-the work stops.

It's as if all the hours spent writing and rehearsing, tacking flyers to utility poles or maintaining forever-multiplying social media platforms suddenly switch off as some vaunted rock-star lifestyle switches on.

And in some cases, maybe it does; then again, BEAR IN HEAVEN's never been about easy expectations of normalcy.

After the release of their second album, 2010's "Beast Rest Forth Mouth", big things began to happen for the Brooklyn trio of Jon Philpot, Joe Stickney and AdamWills, from the aforementioned accolades to an electrifying collection of remixes featuring some of electronic music's heaviest hitters, like THE FIELD and STUDIO.

As if in a transatlantic dream, they even split a single with Norway's Lindstrom and Christabelle, who covered their calling card, "Lovesick Teenagers." But BEAR IN HEAVEN didn't settle for the new well of notoriety they'd opened.

Rather, they played some 200 shows in support of "Beast Rest Forth Mouth" - touring the world, playing bigger rooms, building an intricate stage show that turned an album into a synesthetic experience.

When it was over, they retrenched in Brooklyn and, during the dead of summer, retreated to a chilly practice space to work harder than they'd ever worked on any other project.

They wrote, re-wrote, arranged, re-arranged, spending days or weeks building one song at a time.

After months of testing their limits and trusting their instincts, BEAR IN HEAVEN emerged with "I Love You, It's Cool", an album so vivid and visionary that it meets and even exceeds the confidence and calm its title suggests.

The intricacy and edge of BEAR IN HEAVEN's music is here but sharper and more sophisticated than ever before.

Philpot's programming is complex and compelling, whether in the refracted rainbows he warps on "Kiss Me Crazy" or the noisy matrix he weaves across "Space Remains." Certainly, "The Reflection of You" feels like a hit, with a hook that instantly catches and a bridge that curls its finger-lyrically, stylistically, temptingly-toward the dance floor.

Philpot's mix of nostalgia and need is immediately relatable, bringing the band's exploratory sounds a little closer back to home.

But the song exits in a moment spacerock ascendance, a readymade rock-club banger that erupts in a bold new direction.

"I Love You, It's Cool" is the first time BEAR IN HEAVEN has sounded so unapologetic and so evolved, so risky and so redeeming, so focused and so finessed.

After years of restless exploration, this feels like a definitive arrival. "I Love You, It's Cool" is music written in the present tense but ready to speak to the future.

The work is its own rarified reward. David Wrench engineered and mixed "I Love You, It's Cool" during two months at New York's DNA.

Roberto Lange, Rhys Chatham, James Elliott and Agathe Max contributed to the sounds. Dead Oceans and Hometapes will partner to co-release "I Love You, It's Cool".