Synth-pop act The New Division may have started as a home-recorded outfit in Riverside, CA, but its lead-singer/chief creative force John Glenn Kunkel has since expanded his band’s blend of New Wave and house to very un-bedroom-like proportions. The New Division’s sophomore album, Together We Shine following 2011’s Shadows is a far more slick and expansive-sounding LP than his previous efforts. The new record’s more confident sound also has to do Kunkel becoming more comfortable in the studio. “The songwriting and production on Together We Shine is completely different from Shadows. When I was making Shadows, I really had no clue what I was doing as far as production, but I had a good idea of how to write songs,” Kunkel explains. “It was really my first endeavor trying to make a full album with an electronic sound, as everything I’d previously written was predominantly guitar-driven.” The resulting 11 tracks range from atmospheric synth-pop (“England”), to emotional slow-burners (“St. Petersburg”), to Phoenix-reminiscent stadium rockers (“Stockholm”).