The order in which the Warner-distributed Coalition Entertainment label issued the various versions of the latest Waking Eyes album speaks volumes about how music is consumed today. Holding On to Whatever It Is was made available through iTunes in July of last year, with a vinyl record released in September. The CD didn't come out until November. In this age of digital dominance, the compact-disc format is sliding slowly but irreversibly into irrelevance, while the once-dormant LP is surging back to life. According to Nielsen SoundScan, vinyl sales in 2008 were up 89 percent over '07, making it the format's best year since 1991.

“There is still a group of people—and I think it's growing—who want something in their hands, who want something tangible that they can hold onto that is more than just a collection of songs you throw on your iPod and maybe every once in a while, when it's on shuffle, you'll only be so lucky as to hear one of them,” says the Winnipeg band's singer-keyboardist-guitarist Matt Peters, calling from the Gardiner Expressway, en route to a show in Hamilton, Ontario.

Peters argues that LP listening offers a more interactive experience than the digital alternative.

“You've got to take it out of the sleeve, you've got to put it on the record player, put the needle down, and then you're kind of stuck there listening to a side of it for five or six songs,” he says. “I think it forces you to consume music in a little bit less of an attention-deficit-disorder kind of way.”

Even those with the worst cases of ADD might enjoy Holding On to Whatever It Is, however. Throughout its 12 tracks, the Waking Eyes demonstrate a facility with diverse styles—from the beatbox-driven electropop of “Boyz and Girlz” to the sombre ambient balladry of “Pick Up Yer Number” to the driving funk of “Masters of Deception”—without ever losing sight of the hook.

According to Peters, the finished tracks on Holding On were culled from almost 100 songs that the group had written and demoed. In fact, the band came up with so many ideas that it's selling a three-disc compilation of outtakes and B-sides on its current coheadlining tour with the Arkells. Peters notes that some songs didn't make the cut because they were just too far-out, which is a testament to the wide-ranging influences at play in the Waking Eyes, whom the singer describes as “a bit schizoid”.

For further proof of that, listen closely to the band's lyrics, which unabashedly borrow lines from the Lovin' Spoonful's “Summer in the City” (for “Clap Clap”), the Payola$' “Eyes of a Stranger” (for the disc's title track), and Destiny Child's “Bootylicious” (for “Masters of Deception”).

Peters notes that it was his fellow singer and multi-instrumentalist Rusty Matyas who cribbed a line from Beyoncé Knowles.

“Rusty went out for a smoke and had this idea,” he says. “I remember being opposed to it, but in tracking it, it seemed so funny that we just did it. And then we were thinking, ”˜If she sues us over this, it can only be a good thing for our career, so let's just leave it.' I mean, she'll probably never hear the song in her entire life, but whatever.”

The Waking Eyes play the Biltmore Cabaret on Wednesday (February 25).