Carbon Leaf brings ‘Christmas Child’ to 9:30 Club

Some call Carbon Leaf’s music Southern, others label it Celtic and still others say it leans toward bluegrass or some combination of formats.

No matter what your take on the Richmond-based band’s sound, almost everyone can agree that Carbon Leaf creates music that just isn’t heard anywhere else — and that’s what keeps fans clamoring for more music. Now touring behind new songs — including those written for the just-released “Christmas Child” — the band will surely mix up the set to include some fan favorites and plenty of rethought versions of those tunes, too.

“We like to write songs and then record them in the studio and then, once you have done the whole song, take it out live,” vocalist Barry Privett said. “There are about three stages to getting [a song out on the road].”

That’s not always easy. Consider “Indian Summer,” the band’s 2004 major label debut. The five-piece band was put on such a whirlwind tour — that included working with some big-name artists including John Mayer and Guster — that they didn’t have time to go through the process they needed to create more music. The band spent some time regrouping before it recorded again and released “Nothing Rhymes with Woman” in 2009. That breather gave the band time to get back to the roots of its music.

“There are a lot of layers to our albums,” Privett said. “We don’t record until it’s time and we have enough songs. … [After the debut release], we didn’t have time to let Carter [Gravatt] unwind and play with his guitar toys, and find the different voices in the tones and different melody options that we have been known for.”

That’s clear on the just-released “Christmas Child” that celebrates the whole season and an array of relationships with others, the seasons and even ones’ past. The music is clearly a return to the rootsy/rock/Celtic sound for which the band is best known.

“We want to put out music we enjoy,” he said, “not because we’re on some kind of false schedule or deadline.”