At a glance

To listen to Christian Holden is to know he doesn’t believe in half-hearted effort.

On a recent phone call, the 26-year-old frontman of emo band the Hotelier rasped his way through the interview, the result of illness commingling with screaming through a Los Angeles show the previous night.

Holden channeled similar grit to make “Home, Like NoPlace Is There,” the band’s second album, released in 2014.

Punctuated by desperate howls during songs about suicide and domestic violence, the album’s thorny themes came straight from Holden’s struggling group of friends. The songwriter spewed his pain onto paper, purging himself of the darkness in the process.

Audience members latched onto the unsteady emotions The Hotelier Big Room Bar, 1036 S. Front St. 614-449-9612, www.bigroombar.com 7 p.m. Friday $13, or $15 day of show

emanating from the album, but when Holden started writing a third album, “Goodness,” which the Hotelier will perform on Friday at Big Room Bar, he knew revisiting past demons would be impossible.

“We couldn’t make a darker record,” he said. “It would be both challenging and not showcasing what our band has to offer. The essence of the Hotelier is not sadness.”

Like stepping out of a windowless basement to a light-filled ground floor, “Goodness” leaves behind lurking fears for peace and stability.

The long-winded title of an opening track, “N 43° 59' 38.927" W 71° 23' 45.27”,” — the coordinates to a waterfall in Vermont where Holden almost drowned as a child — is a naturalistic spoken-word poem.

It folds into “Goodness Pt. 2,” a philosophical take on the commonality of humanity.

Bird chirps replace the tormented yowls of “Home.” References to the outdoors — pine sap, deer, water flowing over stones — replace the inner-looking anxiety of Holden’s “Home” lyrics.

A pause before final song "End of Reel" provides a space for brief reflection.

Widely considered to be one of the most critically successful emo bands in recent years, the Hotelier — which, in addition to Holden, includes Chris Hoffman (guitar), Sam Frederick (drums) and sometimes Ben Gauthier (guitar) — sees itself not as breaking off from tradition but fleshing out the genre’s possibility.

“It would be rude and incorrect to say we’re not in the lineage, but we are attempting to innovate,” Holden said. “If you’re … creating what’s already been made, you’re reproducing art rather than carrying on the lineage.”

While his band lucked out with both creative freedom and industry backing, he is frustrated when other boundary-pushing artists lose ground to bands who rehash old sounds.

“The music world, in terms of many forms of art aside from maybe movies … is an art form that’s more market-based than any other medium,” Holden said.

Holden pooh-poohs the concept of capitalism but said divorcing music from money is probably a fruitless effort.

He keeps his areas of