The Black Crowes didn’t play it safe when they recorded their new two-album set, Before The Frost…/Until The Freeze....

The band bypassed conventional recording studios, opting out of the common practice of recording vocals separately and overdubbing instrumental parts.

Instead, The Crowes recorded at Levon Helm’s Woodstock, New York barn, which functions as both a recording studio and a performance space for Helm’s informal Midnight Ramble concerts. Over the course of five concerts in front of a small audience, the band recorded the two-dozen-plus songs that make up the new releases.

There were no extensive rehearsals beforehand, and the live shows afforded little of the precision and control that comes with being in a conventional studio. The very real possibility existed that the recordings would not rise to the level of quality that is required for a studio album.

“It could have been that we were out of our minds and came away with the most expensive demos ever recorded,” Black Crowes drummer Steve Gorman said in a recent phone interview.

Instead, the Black Crowes emerged with some of the best recordings of its long and often stormy career.

So how did the group decide to take such a maverick approach to Before The Frost…/Until The Freeze…?

“I think the initial thing was simply how can we make a record that makes it more interesting for us, and where do you find a connection to some of our fans?” Gorman said. “There were just a lot of disparate thoughts being thrown out. And [singer] Chris [Robinson] had this idea of what if we went into a studio – and he was thinking initially the conventional room – but if the room was big enough where we could put in a dozen people, or just have 25 fans come in, total fly on the wall, and let them watch us track. I think that originally was where he started from. And then everyone went ‘Oh wow, that could be cool.’”

Plans solidified in summer 2008, when Robinson went to see one of Helm’s regular Saturday night Rambles.

“He called everyone the next day saying ‘I got it. I see it. I know what we have to do now,’” Gorman said.

The other band members — Gorman, guitarist (and Chris Robinson’s younger brother) Rich Robinson, bassist Sven Pipien, guitarist Luther Dickinson and keyboardist Adam MacDougall — bought into the idea, and in February of this year, the Black Crowes were in Helm’s barn and ready to make new music.

The music on the two albums certainly crackles with energy and enthusiasm. Before The Frost is a decidedly rocking effort, with the pace slowing only for an occasional song like the acoustic ballad “What Is Home” and the violin-accented “Last Place That Love Lives.”

Meanwhile, Until The Freeze… which is available free as a download with the purchase of “Before The Frost”, is more acoustic, eclectic and rustic, with songs like the cheery country-rock of “Shady Grove” and the twangy romp “Shine Along 128” setting the tone for the disc.

The new albums provide convincing evidence that the group has rebounded nicely from a period of inner-band conflict. The band is entering what could turn out to be one of the most artistically vital and satisfying phases of a career which began when the Black Crowes formed in Atlanta in 1989.

There were some major high points, including a triple-platinum debut album, 1990’s Shake Your Money Maker, an excellent 1992 follow-up, The Southern Harmony and Musical Companion, and a 1996 album, Three Snakes & One Charm that featured a widely aired single, “Blackberry.”

The low point came after the release of 2001 album “Lions,” when the Robinson brothers announced that the Black Crowes were going on an open-ended hiatus, which many observers assumed was code for the band breaking up for good.

During the hiatus, Chris Robinson released two solo albums, New Earth Mud in 2002 and This Magnificent Distance in 2004, while Rich Robinson formed a short-lived band called Hookah Brown before going solo with the 2004 CD, Paper.

But the pull of working together proved to be too much to resist for the brothers.

A version of the band reunited in 2005, but it wasn’t until making the 2007 album Warpaint that, according to Gorman, the Black Crowes began to feel like a creatively renewed band with a real direction forward.

“Warpaint was definitely like the starting gun went off,” Gorman said. “‘I mean, we had a couple of years of touring, where we were trying to figure out what we wanted to do and we were enjoying playing together and feeling like there was definitely someplace to go.

Gorman said that feeling of vitality was very much present during the recording of Before The Frost…/Until The Freeze… and will undoubtedly continue this fall on tour.

“The band is always at its best when everything fits all together,” he said. “For right now where we are, all the pistons are firing or whatever sort of analogy you can use, that’s how it feels.”