Japandroids are Brian King (left) and David Prowse
In an age when every whiff of new music instantly appears online, it's hard to do anything "secretly".
But Japandroids managed just that with the recent release of their third album.
Many fans and critics thought the Canadian duo had vanished after five years of silence but they say a return "was never in doubt".
"We always planned to come back," Brian tells Newsbeat ahead of their European tour.
"We just wanted to do it on our own schedule, on our own terms.
"We just knew we needed to take a bit of time off to get in the right head space."
The pair joined forces 11 years ago, releasing critically acclaimed albums in 2009 and 2012 and building a solid fan base along the way.
Off the back of their second album, Celebration Rock, they toured the world for more than a year and a half in 40 countries without a break.
It was then, at the peak of their popularity, that Brian King gave fans a send off on Facebook, saying it was "time for us to disappear into the ether for a while, y'all stay crazy/forever".
Now, on the verge of another globe-trotting stint, he explains: "When you tour that much you get so burned out that you need to get excited again about playing in the band, about playing music.
"You need to shut off all the expectations. You just need to get in your own world."
He says giving the illusion they'd disappeared took the pressure off starting work on their third album, Near To the Wild Heart of Life.
"On past albums, we would just come home and immediately start writing and that doesn't really work the best.
"This is the first time we decided to come home, rest, recover, adjust to life at home and then start writing.
"We developed this formula of how to write a Japandroids record and we started to do that on every song.
"We knew we could keep doing that indefinitely... But it becomes a lot easier and less interesting."
Despite giving themselves a bit more freedom this time around, Brain adds the duo were "well aware of what critics and most of our fans wanted from us".
"You've got all these people waiting for something and there is this pressure to give them that.
"Even if that's not what the band wants to do.
"We just wanted to make what we thought was great and we really liked. Sometimes that doesn't necessarily jive with what everybody else wants.
"We're unsure of how it's going to go down with the outside world but we're happy with it."
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