“Coming soon,” the notices said. “It’s just around the corner.” But the album took four years to come together. Now the album will be launched with a release party at the Melody Inn this Friday night.

But why did the album take so long to come out?

“It’s not that we didn’t have the tunes,” says Danny Flanigan, the charismatic frontman of the rain chorus. “I write a lot. I don’t have a lack of things to complain about or to express joy about. It took us a long time to find the right studio. A combination of having laid the band off for a while and a lack of funds are the reasons why it took so long. But we couldn’t be happier with the end result.”

After the last rain chorus album, which was released in 1995, Flanigan wanted to take a break. “In the mid-’90s, I basically laid off the rain chorus,” he says. “I wanted to do an unplugged album, one that featured vocals and songs in their essence instead of an album with lots of guitars. I didn’t think about putting the rain chorus back together, until I started running into John Byrne and he started sitting in with us, and it made sense to get back together.”

Byrne, a veteran of the Indianapolis music scene, joined up and added a variety of sounds to the group. He gives the band a solid presence on slide guitar, pedal steel and dobro, among other instruments.

“All the things he brought to the table really sounded great and I knew at that point that we had to get the rain chorus back together. It wasn’t like I broke up the rain chorus forever, I just laid them off for a while,” Flanigan says.

Vernon’s Mud contains 13 songs, 12 of which were recorded at Tim Brickley’s Hit City studios on the Northside of Indy. Brickley also produced the disc. One song was recorded at Echo Park in Bloomington.

“I wanted to record somewhere other than Louisville,” he says. “I felt the band could use the opportunity to record in another city.”

The album features an array of sonic textures and emotions, from a country-pop feel to a more hard-edged sound, leading to one critic saying the group sounds like a cross between Lyle Lovett and Sting. Another called them “the Midwest’s Dave Matthews Band.”

Quite a variety of descriptions for such an unassuming band. But Flanigan didn’t consciously try to create a diverse-sounding record, he says, it’s more a function of where he’s from.

“I really believe there’s a Louisville sound,” he says. “It’s an amalgam of pop, bluegrass, country-folk, rock, all that stuff kind of mixed up. Because this is a minor city, and it’s mellow and laid-back, our sound represents the way that this city feels. There’s a lot of music here that’s similar to that.

“You can’t not hear country music if you’re growing up in Louisville,” he says. “Perhaps in Indianapolis, you could avoid it if you want, but here you can’t. There’s country music festivals, there’s boot-scootin’ bars and all that. The songs I write sound like Louisville. It looks like a city but we’re 175 miles from Nashville; bluegrass is from here. I grew up on pop-metal. I love Ted Nugent and Van Halen. That’s the music I freaked out on when I was 14. Before that, my hero was John Denver. So if I sound like a cross between John Denver and Ted Nugent, that’s why.”

Flanigan, who prefers his name to be spelled in lower case, lives in Louisville with his wife, Joanna, and their 4-year-old son, Benjamin. His group is one of the most successful live attractions in the city of Louisville. “I wouldn’t say that we’re the kings of Louisville, but we’re one of the big fish in this small pond,” he said.

Until recently, Flanigan was a mason’s apprentice for the bricklayer’s union. But he pulled out in good standing to dedicate all his time to promoting the new record. “I’m back to making a living from the guitar now,” he says.

The album shows a range of sounds, from the radio-friendly pop of “This Is What I Miss” to the slower-tempoed “She Talks of Family” and “Goliath.” One thing all the tunes have in common is a heaviness of mood and detail.

Other standout songs on the album include “Stay Away Girl,” “Faith Never Sleeps” and “Sounds Like a Promise.”

After having written 125 songs (and “about 75 good ones,” he says) Flanigan’s set his ambitions high.

“I really want to be a great songwriter,” he said. “That’s my goal. I feel like I have the potential to be great. I’m just maybe a click above average now, but I really yearn to be a great writer. We’ve got good players in the band, the chemistry is fantastic. We’re all best friends in the band. But what really matters is the songs.”

Now 34, Flanigan says he uses the maturity that comes with growing up to his advantage. “As I get older, I realize I can write a song about anything. It could be a small idea or detail or it can be large. I’m in a truth vein; I’m starting to write a lot of songs about truth. I’ve been thinking about truth a lot. Not truth as a metaphor for something else, but truth as a whole. I’m older now and I can write about anything I want and I’m not afraid to write about anything.”

What does he hope people take from the new album? “I hope that people realize that we’re a band with a writer who really cares about making great songs and a great record,” he said. “We had some goals in mind when we made this record. We wanted to make a little more aggressive record, because the last album was really laid back. People would come and hear the live show and say, ‘You guys really rock,’ but that never came across on our albums. So we wanted to be more aggressive this time. We wanted to make a record that you can turn up loud.”

The rest of the band — Cary Shields, drums; Phillip Wakeman, mandolin; Kelly Wilkinson, backup vocals; and Tim Halcomb, bass — shines throughout the disc, laying down a solid foundation without overpowering the material.

“I’m not unhappy that I’m not rich and famous,” he wrote in his press bio. “I’m not unhappy at all. I’m not satisfied though — because of the 5 billion people on earth, only 10,000 or so have even one of my albums.”

The album will be available at the usual in and out-of-town purveyors of local, original music.

shammer@nuvo.net