Broadly speaking, Centro-matic once belonged to the alt-country nation, but much like a toddler and shoes, the band has quickly outgrown that label. Under the leadership of Will Johnson, the band has been too prolific to be locked into any one thing. (At its peak, Centro-matic released nine albums in eight years.) Or perhaps it was just an ill-fitting suit that perception tried to shove them in to begin with. Regardless, now unbound by convention or loose expectations, the band has released its 11th album, Take Pride in Your Long Odds (Navigational Transmissions/Thirty Tigers).

It’s been three years since the last Centro-matic album, although Johnson himself has stayed as busy as ever with a variety of side-projects. Perhaps that extended period of time away from the Centro-matic name allowed him to recast things or gently nudge the band in a different direction. That seems to be the case with the title track, which opens the record. It’s an instrumental with feedback, distorted guitar, snatches of what seems to be a banjo, piano, and some ambient noise and loops strung throughout. While it may not shake the foundations of Centro-matic, it does telegraph that things are a tad bit different this time around. That noisy mish-mash pops up in various places on the album, notably “Salty Disciple,” which layers gurgling synths and a guitar line that seems more in line with The Rapture than alt-country upon a hip-hop-leaning backbeat.

If there was any type of lineage with which to connect, there are moments that recall Wilco’s A Ghost Is Born. Yet Take Pride in Your Long Odds doesn’t totally throw out the baby with the bathwater. There are certainly a number of moments and sounds that bear country rock touchstones, but they also sit side-by-side with some tough-minded rock riffs. What makes it work is that there’s no clear delineation. The elements are blended together in unobvious, and thus more interesting, ways. Lyrically, Johnson took a similar approach, with literal and narrative passages stepping aside for more abstracted phrases. With the exception of the rare moments where the sonic experimenting slows the album’s momentum down, Centro-matic has succeeded in adding new patches to its sonic quilt. May the odds forever be in their favor.