Two former dance punks start a more mature project.

As part of Q and Not U, John Davis and Chris Richards released three seminal albums of angular-but-danceable post-punk for DC mainstay Dischord in the early 2000s.

Since the band’s 2005 break-up, the two have stayed busy: Davis has explored power pop as part of Georgie James and then Title Tracks, while Richards released an experimental album as Ris Paul Ric before becoming The Washington Post‘s pop music critic.

The two have reunited as Paint Branch, sharing the harmonic, guitar-centric ‘Brighton Beach’. As can be expected, the song is miles away from the frenetic territory the two mined with Q and Not U: think folk-rock storytelling in the style of Neil Young. The band will self-release their debut album, I Wanna Live, on January 8. [via Spin]