There is a sound on the horizon as well as the foreground, a sound that drives and stirs nostalgia into the wakefulness by day as well as within the dream under black night. This is the sound the Black Blacks create in their latest music.

The band, which formed in southern Illinois more than a year ago, is fronted by Clay Bonifecius, the only remaining member since the band’s formation. The band’s punk-rock sound enraptures the ear with infectious rhythm of exploding pace, exploring influences such as The Ramones and The Misfits, as well as The Riverdales and The Lillingtons.

Fellow musician Bob Zulu asked to join the group upon seeing the band during a 2012 performance. Bonifecius and Zulu have known one another around the music scene since their individual moves to Carbondale in 2000. With Bonifecius on lead vocals and Zulu performing backup, both incorporate their individual styles with the guitar, occasionally swaying from rhythm to lead and vice-versa, with Zulu sporadically taking up bass.

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Other band members include Jeff Funburg, who plays bass for the band, as well as guitar for local band The Copyrights, where he performs with past Black Blacks member Taylor Spray.

Bonifecius said the group wanted to find a name that would match their dark sound.

“There are just like a million rock bands called Black-something-or-other, so I thought, to be ‘black to the core,’ we would be Black-Black,” Bonifecius said. “That’s also why most of the content in the songs are mean spirited. To kind of keep it on that level, we don’t really have any ‘nice’ songs. That’s kind of the plan in moving forward.”

The group has just released a new E.P. entitled Smells like Mean Spirit, conveying popular tracks such as “Take Your Lumps” and “Tough Guy.” The E.P. recording session was finished within a matter of hours, during which all members were able to lay down their entire instrumentals.

“It was real easy,” Zulu said. “We told the guy recording us that we wanted to do 16 songs. He laughed at us because we wanted to do all of the drums in one night and our drummer knocked it out in two hours. Each one of our parts took about two hours . . . vocals and post-production took a little longer.”

The album was recorded at musician Morgan Demling’s studio, where the band had complete creative control in recording their 16-song set list.

“Everything took about two takes for the most part, and that’s all the vocals were two takes, just to make sure that there would be enough to make everything sound good,” Bonifecius said.

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The E.P., which was cordially recorded alongside their L.P. AR- 15, possesses two bonus tracks for listeners. There are six songs in total on the E.P., two of which are unique and made specifically for the record, as well as two covers.

The band is also considering an acoustic performance, Bonifecius said.

“In a different environment to what we would normally do, yeah, I’d be open to maybe doing a couple of our songs acoustic and maybe doing some covers,” he said. “I really like ’50 and ’60s music like The Crystals and The Ronettes. I wanted to do some of their songs anyway.”

The band intends on releasing their full-length album soon, with a tentative release date by the end of the year, they hope to release it onto both vinyl and cassette.

Tracks from the E.P. can be found online on TheBlackBlacks. bandcamp.com, where the E.P. can be purchased for $2.50. Listeners can also purchase it at Carbondale’s Plaza Records for $3.