The Ponys play the Black Cat Backstage tonight with Jay Reatard. $10, Doors at 9 p.m.

The Ponys are one of those buzz bands that seem perennially plagued with the “next big thing” tag. Hailing from Chicago, a city full of legends of all sorts and more than a few hype-worthy up-and-comers, theirs is a difficult task. But 2006's Turn the Lights Out picked up where Celebration Castle left off and took it one step further: this time they enlisted John Agnello (the man behind the deluxe guitar sounds on the most recent Hold Steady and Sonic Youth releases) to help beef things up. They’ve done just that, blanketing their driving melodies with a haze of loud, menacing guitar sounds. The combination brings to mind Viva Voce or maybe higher-fi version of the Rainbow Quartz psych groups – where thumping drums meet guitars addled with echo, reverb, and delay. There’s no one standout on the album, but that just means there are plenty of treasures to go around. Opener “Double Vision” is Jesus and Mary Chain via the Black Keys, “Kingdom of Hearts” is dark but pretty shoegazer, and “Pickpocket Song” is a spacey and meandering mini-epic.

In the midst of a summer tour that will take them down the East Coast and back to their Windy City home, lead singer and guitarist Jered Gummere took some time to talk to us.

How’s the tour going so far?
We’ve been gone a few days. Started at the Pitchfork Festival, then just been on the road – us and Jay Reatard and Deerhunter for some of the dates.

How was the Pitchfork Festival? It seemed to get good reviews.
Nice, I mean, it was pretty small, and not a lot of corporate sponsorship banners everywhere. We saw Yoko Ono…that was pretty weird. We watched Deerhunter too, they’re always great.

Turn the Lights Out was released a while ago. Are you still kinda touring that stuff?
Yeah, kinda. We try to switch it up every night, but there’s a core setlist that’s also got a bunch of old songs too. I really like playing "Everday Weapon" live – it’s loud.

That album seemed to have a lot of focus on guitar sound, a lot of atmosphere and drone surrounding the songs. Was the recording process different than it had been in the past?
No, the process really wasn’t that much different. We wrote some songs, we demo’d them, but we had a little more time and a little more money this time around. We weren’t trying to do 14 songs in 3 days or something crazy like that. We could relax and actually work on material. Plus, we got to work with John Agnello at Steve Albini’s studio, which was great.

What was that like?
Pretty great. John’s a lot like us – he likes guitars, we like guitars, and he likes to bullshit all the time. And he knows how to mic really well.

What do you all make of some of the different genre labels or influences you get pegged with?
Well they’re all usually pretty good bands, so I can’t really complain. I do kinda think we get picked on a little for it. I mean you listen to the new Arcade Fire record, and it sounds like Bruce Springsteen, and they get all this praise for it. Not saying I don’t like that record, because I do — a lot.

What’s up next for the Ponys?
Were gonna go home for a while, take some time off, sit around in Chicago, then we’re doing a tour with Spoon in the fall. We’ve never really done anything that big before, so we’re pretty excited about it.

Any chance that tour will be coming to DC?
Yeah, I think we’re coming to DC. I don’t think its been confirmed. I know they told me there were a few dates that weren’t confirmed and so I wasn’t supposed to say anything. So I probably shouldn’t say anything. So…No comment.