It may be 80 degrees outside, but Erika Wennerstrom of Heartless Bastards has the Christmas spirit. “We’re actually cutting a Christmas tune for a compilation right now,” she says. “We’re doing ‘Blue Christmas.’ It’s kind of funny since it’s May.” The Austin-based band plays One Eyed Jacks on Saturday, and she’s calling from her friend’s studio in Texas. “I was singing along, practicing it last week, and I realized the windows were down. I had ‘Blue Christmas’ blasting out of my window.”

Christmas songs aren’t the only thing keeping Wennerstrom and her band feeling festive. The group’s new album Arrow, recorded in the spring of 2011, was released this past February and contains some of their heaviest and most dynamic music to date.

With the addition of guitarist Mark Nathan, the band has shed the melancholy folk-rock sound of their previous album, The Mountain, in favor of a more raucous, classic rock-centered collection of songs grounded in Wennerstrom’s powerful vocals. Under the guidance of producer Jim Eno (also the drummer for Spoon), Arrow has a grittier edge then their previous work, which attempts to capture the band’s live sound.

“We did a month-long tour before we went in the studio and opened for the Drive-By Truckers out on the West Coast,” Wennerstrom says. “Then we went in the studio two days later. On a lot of the takes on the album, we didn’t add a lot of extra instrumentation. A lot of that is what our live sound is, and even a lot of the lead guitar parts are totally live, like on ‘Simple Feeling.’ On ‘Low Low Low,’ we all stood in a room in a circle and did that live, vocals and everything.”

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Wennestrom has pursued a career in music as far back as she can remember. “I’ve always wanted to play music since I was old enough to think about doing anything,” she says. “I’m not really sure what initially inspired me to want to do this because when I look back, I think I was somewhere between three and five years old.”

After leaving high school at 17, Wennerstrom decided to devote her life to becoming a musician. She was in the process of teaching herself how to write songs and play guitar when a friend asked if she’d be interested in learning to play bass for a band. She went for it, and after gaining the confidence to perform live, Wennerstrom formed the Heartless Bastards in 2003 in Cincinnati. They were eventually signed to Fat Possum Records in 2004 after Patrick Carney of the Black Keys passed along their demo.

Wennerstrom has spent the majority of time on the road since devoting herself to Heartless Bastards, and many of the songs on Arrow reflect these themes of travel and place. Prior to recording the album, she took a series of road trips that took her from Austin to Ohio, Arkansas, and the Catskill Mountains. “With each place I stopped I would take several days on my own and find somewhere and isolate myself. It was about a month-long trip, but I would stop somewhere and visit somebody and then take some days on my own.” She attributes a lot of the album’s imagery and feel to the time she spent on a friend’s borrowed ranch in West Texas, including “The Air that Killed the Beast” and the first single, “Parted Ways.”

While their tour includes stops at a number of major national festivals, including Hangout Fest in Gulf Shores, Wennestrom and the band are looking forward to spending some time in New Orleans. “We actually have a day off there afterwards and it’s not often that we do, so it’ll be great to go out and see more of the city.”

As live performers, Heartless Bastards have honed a style steeped in the traditions of classic rock and blues, which is expertly captured on their most recent record. “With The Mountain, there were session musicians because I had just moved to Austin and started over. With Arrow, we’ve all been touring together as a band for going on three-and-a-half, four years. I feel we’re a tight band as people and musically, and I feel like it really comes across on the album.”

Heartless Bastards play One Eyed Jacks Saturday at 10 p.m. with These United States. Doors open at 9; tickets are on sale now.