It’s been a busy summer for reggae-inspired soul six-piece the Boom Booms — something the Vancouver band is ready to share with Merritt fans on Thursday.

Concertgoers at the Culture Club will be treated to some new tracks off Love is Overdue — the followup to 2011’s ¡Hot Rum! — which will be released in early October, and some even newer material the band has been working on since.

“The record is more R&B, somewhere between like ’90s hip-hop, R&B and throwback soul, along the lines of Bill Withers and Al Green,” lead singer Aaron Ross said.

The Boom Booms have been on a steady rise since winning second place in Vancouver’s PEAK Performance Project in 2011.

Winning that $75,000 prize gave the six-piece some room to breathe — something afforded while their debut album gained momentum.

“It’s still new to lots of people in different places,” Ross said of their first record with a laugh.

“The fact that it’s served us so well and had a good lifespan has been a blessing and kind of a surprise,” he said. “We feel like we’ve grown so much as a band and we’re happy to be presenting new music.”

They’ve recorded two music videos to go with the new record — one for the title track and one for the new single Satisfied — which will be released in the next month.

Along with the major milestone of recording their sophomore record, the group put together a mini music festival called the East Van Summer Jam in July.

The Summer Jam is a reincarnation of the Boom Boom Block Party, which took place in the alley between two of the bandmates’ houses for six years.

In 2012, the block party brought out more than a thousand people and raised $14,000 for the Music Tree, a charitable foundation Ross started with Team Canada basketball player Levon Kendall.

The society has provided more than $20,000 to organizations locally and internationally, including East Vancouver agriculture programs for youth and hip-hop programs for youth in Uganda.

Being its first year, the Summer Jam didn’t raise any money for the charity, but did lay a solid foundation for next year’s event, Ross said.

Changing over from a block party to a festival within the city’s limits meant more behind-the-scenes work than getting friends in other bands together for the lineup, assembling a stage and buying some chicken and rice, Ross said.

“It was a full-time job for a few months,” he said.

But even as momentum around the Boom Booms continues to grow, the band hasn’t lost sight of its roots.

“This was mostly about building the idea, and everybody is very keen to see a festival in East Vancouver thrive, and especially to be done by East Van kids — we accomplished what we set out to do,” he said.

They also played at Pemberton Music Festival in July, which featured headliners such as Nine Inch Nails, Snoop Dogg and Metric.

“That was cool. To eat fried chicken with Andre 3000 and stuff like that was cool,” Ross said of one half of hip-hop duo Outkast.

After their Thursday night show in Merritt, the Boom Booms will continue on to Edmonton and Calgary before returning to play more shows around B.C., then heading south to Florida to play Woodystock — a benefit concert to raise money for people with spinal cord injuries.

Doors to the Culture Club on Granite Avenue open at 7 p.m. on Sept. 11.

The show is presented by friends of SaySo, and tickets are $20 and available at Black’s Pharmacy.