Good for Grapes is having a hell of a year. Following a late-2014 win at the PEAK Performance Project, which landed it a whopping $102,700 in prize money, the Surrey-bred outfit managed to book a couple months at Bryan Adams’s Gastown recording studio, the Warehouse, this spring to lay down its most recent folk-fried venture, The Ropes. The group is also touring more than ever before, and currently undertaking a Canadian trek that caps in December.

It hasn’t all been good for Grapes, though, as vocalist-guitarist Daniel McBurnie reports that just one week into the trip, the group has already burned through three different vehicles.

“We’ve had some pretty extraordinary vehicle troubles. You wouldn’t believe it,” he tells the Straight from a cellphone inside the band’s rental van, which is pulled over on a stretch of highway by Rosetown, Saskatchewan. As the rest of the combo takes a smoke break, McBurnie explains that their regular ride is parked at a repair shop in Revelstoke.

“We just put eight grand into our vehicle, right, and we got it back the day before tour. Four hours into the tour, it breaks down,” he notes with frustration. “One tiny little inspection mistake screwed up our entire vehicle.”

Though it was forced to cancel the first concert of the tour, the group—McBurnie, guitarist Graham Gomez, pianist Alexa Unwin, bassist Robert Hardie, cellist Alex Hauka, and drummer Will Watson—put its best foot forward and booked an alternative way to cross the Rockies. As it turns out, that didn’t work out so hot either.

“We had to take the most expensive cab ride: Revelstoke to Calgary… Seven hundred bucks! And on the way, the cab popped a tire,” McBurnie says, with more than a hint of incredulity creeping into his voice. “We just rented a 15-passenger for a week until we can figure out our shit.”

But the band won’t let this recent comedy of errors beat it down. Good for Grapes’ stock is on the rise, and the frontman notes that crowds have been eager to celebrate the self-described “folk stomp” flavour of the band’s older material, as well as the new, expansive sounds of The Ropes.

The new record still delivers plenty of anthems big on stomping beats, bold acoustic guitar, and melodic gang “whoas” that compare favourably to the likes of Mumford & Sons. And like that U.K. act, Good for Grapes lets its imagination run wild on its latest LP. The album centrepiece, “Gethsemane Blues”, for instance, is an eight-minute epic that jumps from emerald-hued folk to Godspeed You! Black Emperor–grade postrock grandeur and into a back end of Bud-spillin’ rock riffs.

Elsewhere, the record mixes Gaelic rhythms with sweat-slicked Delta-blues slide guitar (“Stung”) and traffics in banjo-pluckin’ shuffles tailor-made for a Tennessee barn dance (“Waiting on a Ghost”). McBurnie also suggests that the folkies are unafraid to work in “the elements of a screamo breakdown”, should it fit the song.

“We’re all frickin’ metalheads,” the guitarist says with a laugh.

While fans may not have to worry about getting caught in a mosh at a Good for Grapes gig, the band offers some unsettling themes on The Ropes. Opener “Cursed by the Wind” has McBurnie hanging his head low and desperately “searching for some peace of mind. He’s similarly bothered in “Nightmares”, a melancholy diversion in which he’s “trapped by a handle of fear” every night. The singer explains that there’s a very real root to this nocturnal problem.

“I have always suffered from insomnia and night terrors,” he says. “I do the craziest things in my sleep. Every partner I’ve ever had has told me things like ‘You sat up in bed last night and were flailing around and talking.’ ”

Of the tune’s theme of finding solace with an understanding bedmate, he continues: “It’s always been a thing, and that song is about a girl that I was with for a long time. She would be there when I woke up from whatever fucked-up nightmare I was having, and I talked to her about it.”

While Good for Grapes is getting used to not being at home, the act is still dedicated to its community. Ahead of its most recent tour, the band’s members used the industry know-how they’ve picked up over the last few years to guide a bunch of aspiring young musicians during a workshop at the Surrey Arts Centre, advising them on how to book their own shows and survive on the road.

In the latter case, it would seem that a positive outlook and a cab company on speed-dial are a good start.

Good for Grapes plays the Imperial on Thursday (November 12).