If the name Maserati sounds familiar and you’ve never heard of the band, you probably recognize it from an action movie. The Italian-engineered sports car is a rarity to be seen the highway.

“Our first instinct was to think of name that sounded familiar. You can let your imagination run wild,” said guitarist Coley Dennis.

One thing Maserati has mastered over the past eight years is capturing an audience’s imagination by abandoning lyrical storytelling and adopting a narrative of instrumental creativity.

“I don’t really care about music where the message is so obvious,” said guitarist Matt Cherry. “Ours is vague on purpose. If you asked all of us what the meaning of a song is, you’d get four different answers.”

Maserati re-invents the art of instrumental psychedellica. Songs such as “The Language” fill seven minutes with entrancing drum fills and a climax of churning guitars.

“We don’t really have a set formula. If anything, we try to stay away from the formulas, especially things that are done in the past,” Dennis said.

Maserati improvises on its songs during live performances, where the guitars interplay off of one another.

“It depends on how we’re feeling at the time. A song could get extended a couple minutes because of how we feel,” Dennis said.

To coincide with their fall tour, Maserati recently released a rarities album composed of songs that were originally only available on vinyl.

“I’m glad we could resurrect those recordings because with them being out of print on vinyl it’s like they’re gone,” Dennis said. “So it’s a nice thing to have that all in one package.”

Although Dennis and bassist Chris McNeal live in Athens, Cherry resides in Atlanta and drummer Jerry Fuchs spends his time in Brooklyn, N.Y. The band members treat the geographical barriers as an advantage.

“As far as rehearsing goes, we have to make the time that we have. We practice longer, and that makes us more productive,” Cherry said.

Dennis describes the band’s tour as a reunion. “It’s always like a homecoming of sorts,” he said. “We always come back to Athens and whenever we play live we say we’re from Athens. Some of us live in different towns, but we always call Athens home.”