PITTSBURGH — There had been enough silence from Donora the past half-decade for the band to slip into the "whatever happened to" category.

That was a loss for the Pittsburgh scene because Donora has a unique flavor to its bubbly indie-pop owing to the breezy-to-insistent vocals of frontwoman Casey Hanner and the clean production of her drummer/brother Jake.

Donora went eight years without releasing new music, and it's been more than four since its last show. Now, Donora is back, with fourth album "Out Here Bleeding Again" and a vinyl release show slated for Friday at The Original Pittsburgh Winery in the Strip District.

When last we checked in with Casey, in 2021, she was dropping a folk-country record under the pseudonym of LaRue June and raising two children under 4.

Along with being a busy mom, she says the timing just wasn't right for Donora.

"You know the feeling," she says, "when really terrible stuff is happening in the world and you have to just kind of go about your life as usual and go to work and make small talk and be like, 'I'm good, how are you?' — all the time thinking about these terrible things? That was happening in my life, and I couldn't bear the thought of having to do that in my music, too.

"I know that people need music and they want music as an escape to forget about the terrible stuff, but as a person who was creating the music and performing the music, it just felt so inauthentic, I guess. Donora has always been this sort of joyful, positive project, and I wasn't feeling much joy or positivity. So I needed some time to kind of remember why I enjoy making positive music."

At the same time, for the daughter of Pittsburgh music legend Dave Hanner (Gravel, Corbin/Hanner), the music never stopped — as the Dead said.

"I've always just loved making up melodies, and, obviously, I grew up in a house where there was always music being created, and it was just sort of woven into my life," she says. "I'm making up little songs constantly. When I wasn't thinking about music at all, I was still making up little songs about, like, putting my daughter's clothes on in the morning. I think that's kind of how I process the world, is through melody."

One of those turned out to be "Sing My Praise," the first spark for "Out Here Bleeding Again." The piano ballad that opens the album, gorgeously sung and displaying her full soprano range, is less like the typical Donora song and more like something from the Taylor Swift catalog.

"I actually have a voice note of that," she says. "You can hear me doing the dishes and I was just sort of singing it to myself with the kids in the background screaming.

"As a woman, as a mother, you go through this really weird period of time where you are focusing on your children and you kind of lose sight of who you are. And so I think that I was really grappling with that and trying to, like, re-remember who I was and just learning a lot about myself during that time period. So I think that song came from those experiences of trying to sort of understand who I was and what was important to me."

When she sent it to Jake, he said, "Let's record it," whether or not it would become a Donora song, and that turned out to be the icebreaker for the band. Jake was working at the time with local singer-songwriter Anthony Jardine, who provided the delicate piano track.

"It made me really excited about making music again," Casey says. "So, yeah, it's different from the sort of '80s poppy vibe. But I think that the overall kind of joyful positivity, that's still a thread that runs through the album."

The best-known song in the Donora catalog, "I Think I Like You," having been used in a Nationwide commercial, has more than 1.7 million Spotify streams.

From the atmospheric "Sing My Praise," the band goes right into those upbeat pop gems with "Hearts Out on Their Own," and "Out Here Bleeding Again" continues with the best of both Donora worlds.

Ahead of the vinyl release, Donora issued the album in late November on what she calls "artist-forward services" Bandcamp, TIDAL and Qobuz, keeping it off of major streaming platforms.

"One thing that came up — especially for my brother — was the idea that the major streaming services are really built on, fundamentally, undervaluing and exploiting artists," she says.

"I think that's what I wanted this album to be about is having honest conversations with ourselves, with each other. And, like, let's talk about the fact that we're being exploited by billionaires. Everywhere we turn, we're being exploited by billionaires. I'm just sort of sick of that, and I want to talk about it more."

Although the full album won't be streaming on the largest of the music streaming platforms anytime soon, they are uploading "One Voice," a song that is particularly meaningful to Casey, as a single.

"That song is a really good representation of the album and where my mindset was while I was writing the album," she says. "That song is about choosing to use your voice and your actions for good even when change feels really impossible. I think lots of times we set our sights on these really big systematic changes, and, in reality, we don't have much influence over those kinds of changes as individuals.

"And so, when we don't make the change that we want, we get very discouraged and think, 'What's the point of even trying?'

"This song was a reminder to myself and sort of a recommitment to this idea that our words and our actions do matter. We can make sure our neighbors are safe and taken care of, we can support each other, we can help each other, we can come together as a community to make our communities better. So the song and I think the album is really just about believing that our words and our actions have an effect on people and that it's all connected to the bigger picture. That might sound cheesy or naive, but it's something that I really want to believe and that I choose to believe in: the decency of human beings."

On Friday, Donora will step out for its first show since 2021 with the lineup of the Hanner siblings, longtime bassist Jake Churton, guitarist Alex Stanton and keyboardist Thanakarn (Bank) Limtham.

"I'm really excited to play these songs live," Casey says. "I'm excited to bring people together because, to me, right now, that community and human connection is the only thing that feels truly worthwhile to me right now. I think the live show is really a chance for us to come together and celebrate each other. And I am providing that escape for people while also remembering that responsibility that we have to each other to lift each other up and to really care about what happens to every single person. Hopefully it will be a very joyful experience."

The show is at 8 p.m. Friday with Morgan Erina. Tickets are $26.88 advance; $33 at the door; pittsburghwinery.com.

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