Elizabeth & the Catapult bound ahead

Sometimes the way to a goal isn’t direct. Consider “The Other Side of Zero,” the latest album by Brooklyn-based Elizabeth & the Catapult. The album started with a Lincoln Center song cycle that was the result of a commission from NPR’s John Schaefer.

“We didn’t expect this so quickly,” frontwoman Elizabeth Ziman said. “The Lincoln Center experience just charmed us into the whole album.”

The album actually came about from other inspirations, too, including the insights Ziman found from reading Leonard Cohen’s “Book of Longing.” Basically, the book put her in a coming-of-age type of mind frame. The resulting album is filled with dark, tongue-in-cheek songs.

“Even the happiest-sounding pop songs on this record have a tinge of regret and darkness to them,” Ziman explained. “And thank goodness for that. Ultimately that’s the only way I’d feel comfortable singing them. I’m drawn to the ambiguity like a menacing smile.”

Much of the credit for the songs’ full, rich sound is also due to producer Tony Berg (Peter Gabriel, Jesca Hoop), said Danny Molad, the band’s drummer and self-described “engineer guy.”

“We were really excited and happy with the work we were doing,” Molad said. “At first, we were a little resistant [to using an outside producer], but he really showed us a new side of us that we didn’t know we had.”

Ziman’s take is that the overall album is more mature.

“It’s just more cohesive. It’s not about them but the soundscape,” she said. “We had a bond with [Tony] the moment we met him and we are all glad we had this experience.”

That bonding, said Molad, allowed him to clear his head and give a lot more to the percussion than he normally can put forth.

“It was liberating,” he said. “It kind of clears your head a lot.”

Still, the session was a different experience for the band that for more than four years have been the ultimate DIY project.

“I don’t want to like it too much,” Ziman said. “There’s a fine line working with a producer or a label or a manager. We are a do-it-yourself band for four years and you create a person. The truth is our voice is very much intact [on the album] and we stayed honest even though someone else was steering the ship.”