Travel. Romance. Solitude. Rest.

While, as a former hotel employee (I lasted seven months until I quit that shit, yo!), I can professionally attest the above semi-slogan sounds like a marketing department-created mantra you’d see on a pillow placard at the Holiday Inn, for Hotels — a hype-propelled Seattle band scheduled to take the stage at the New Frontier this Saturday — the meaning is slightly different.



Which makes sense, actually, since Hotels crafted the expression as a way to describe the band. Where the Chili Peppers are blood, sex, sugar, magic, and tube socks, Hotels are travel, romance, solitude and rest.



Or something like that … It’s really not important.



Perhaps you’ve heard of Hotels? If your radio dial ever stops on KEXP, at least within the past few months, anyway, there’s a good chance you have. Powered by the airplay success of the band’s sophomore effort, Where Hearts Go Broke — which officially “dropped” on Valentine’s Day and features a startling mix of New Wave and post punk, up and down, dance and melancholic circumstance — Hotels, as a band, is finding itself in a world that seems more ready than ever to digest it.



“I think the goal is to improve with every album. I hate to admit it, but I listen to our stuff incessantly. I’m always hoping to learn something new; to see what worked this time around and what didn’t. I think Hearts is definitely a step forward after our first album, so we feel we have accomplished something in that sense,” explains Hotels frontman Blake Madden.



“My only frustration with this album is the time it took to make — about three years in total,” Madden continues, saying the band’s progress was slowed by the typical obstacles, like scheduling difficulties and studio time restrictions.



“It’s not just practical issues, though, because the longer you take recording something, the less perspective you have on it. I think the recording process rewards those who make quick, confident decisions, and punishes those who don’t. I think we’ve learned our lesson.”



Madden and Hotels craft eerie soundscapes, moments and feelings captured in music capable of engulfing the willing —  using their ears as portals and evoking feelings of ease, or isolation — or life. Sometimes all three. The music transports the listener to a place in the future that sounds strangely like the past. It’s somewhat haunting but oddly familiar, a one-night stay with an alluring and mysterious friend you’ve never met.



Seattle initially came to know Hotels as something of a visiting relative from out of town — with Madden working on the band both in Seattle and New York, where he’d moved from to the Emerald City. Not wanting to give Hotels up, but now located on the left coast, Madden initially enlisted musicians on both sides of the continent, attempting to create the “world’s first truly bi-coastal band,” according to the band’s MySpace page.

After a while, as you could certainly imagine, this approach grew tiring. Hotels is now exclusively based in Seattle — though Madden still reserves the right to fire up the NY faction of the band should the urge strike.



“It went surprisingly well in the early goings,” says Madden. “I moved away from New York because the city was just rubbing me the wrong way personally after a while, but I definitely knew Hotels hadn’t gone its full course yet. I wanted to keep it going, but also wanted to do something similar in my new home, Seattle.



“I thought it would be vaguely dishonest to come up with a new band with a different name that basically played the same style of music, so I went in the completely opposite direction, calling it exactly the same thing, with the idea that the different divisions would sonically represent their geographic locations appropriately.”



The results, so far, have been almost entirely positive. Not only is KEXP on to Hotels like pimply faced teenage girls are on to Proactiv, but the repercussions of that relationship are starting to trickle down. The band’s summer itinerary includes appearances at both the Capitol Hill Block Party and Bumbershoot —which, for an indie band in Seattle, is about as good as it gets.



“It’s something that’s confusing, amusing, deeply satisfying, and terrifying all at once,” explains Madden, also saying the band has cultivated a more expansive sound since relocating to Seattle. “The same clubs and festivals that ignored us last year are now approaching us for dates.”



The first time Hotels played Tacoma was at Bob’s Java Jive, and the band was disappointed that rumors of a monkey bartender proved overblown. Don’t let them leave town disappointed twice. The Hotels show this Saturday at the New Frontier is going to be one folks talk about.



[The New Frontier Lounge, with the Girls, Sons of Ivan, Saturday, May 9, 9 p.m., $5, 301 E. 25th St., Tacoma, 253.572.4020]