If you already plan on attending this weekend’s Middlewest Fest, there is no reason to miss this year’s featured band – Company of Thieves. If you weren’t planning on going, their presence should change your mind.

Company of Thieves, an alternative rock band from Chicago, plays rich, evocative songs that will draw you in, and by the end of an entire album, will leave you speechless. Lead vocalist for the group, Genevieve Schatz , often sings about relationships – but not the typical boyfriend or girlfriend kind.

“I’ve just naturally shied away from songs that are only about relationships between, like, me and another person, and I’ve always felt more compelled to write about the relationships between people and their environment, and people and the idea of themselves,” Shatz said. “And people and their ambition and obstacles in their life, as opposed to just, like, ‘Oh I love you, you broke my heart.’ You know what I mean? There’s just so many other relationships going on, all the time. And so, I like to sort of ask questions about those or make observations or things like that.”

Their lyrics, while sometimes abstract and other times quite direct, are always deep and full of emotion. Their sophomore album, Running from a Gamble, starts off with a chilling 35-second a cappella intro, and then the second to last song, “Won’t Go Quietly,” starts off calmly then explodes into an emotional scream: “I will not go quietly! I will not be silenced!”

Schatz named this song as her favorite track from this album.

“It’s just such a release for me,” Shatz said. “I have a great time playing it live, and recording it was really therapeutic. It kind of has this lull, you know? And it gets me really excited to just speak up and stand up for myself.”

These climactic vocal outbursts are emblematic of the group. There’s “Gorgeous/Grotesque,” where Shatz shouts, “Oh, we need a closeness — a harmless closeness!” And “The Fire Song,” from their first album, Ordinary Riches repeats the line “Why I ran away I’ll never know,” alluding to the singer’s dark past that eventually led her to this band.

“I ran away from my extremely dysfunctional home,” Genevieve wrote on the band’s official website. “We dropped out of college and spent student loans to make our first record.”

That first album, Ordinary Riches, reached No. 5 on Billboard’s Heatseekers Albums chart, and their newly released sophomore album, Running from a Gamble is quickly gaining popularity among their ever increasing fan base.

As a part of Middlewest Fest 2011, Company of Thieves will hit the stage at 10:00 p.m. Saturday at The Egyptian Theatre, 135 N. 2nd St.

“I’m excited about meeting a lot of other bands that I’ve been a fan of for a while, like Tokyo Police Club, and just seeing how they put on their production,” Shatz said. “I get really inspired and challenged when I see other artists. Everybody kind of comes around and comes together for something bigger than them for music, and it’s really cool.”