Pebbles

Stefan Neville's intriguing explorations into ragged enjoyable psych-rock that verges on the avant-garde continue with Pebbles, Pumice's first effort for the Soft Abuse label. Kicking off with the downright jaunty "Eyebath," possibly Neville's most immediately catchy song to date, Pebbles perhaps intentionally calls to mind one of the never-ending series of psych obscurity compilations that came to be in the wake of Nuggets. Certainly much of Pebbles carefully finds a middle ground between conventionality and tripping out, in a way that suggests a wide range of antecedents — something like "Stopover" could simultaneously be an early-'80s act on Flying Nun trying out rough indie pop, and Jandek honing down his more out-there moments just enough, if only just. At its murkiest — which is pretty considerable — Pebbles has a calm but strong impact; the yearning, half-heard vocals on "Bold/Old," set against an attractive, echo-laden acoustic/electric guitar combination is one such example; the rumbling demi-tribal beat and scraping feedback crunch of the lengthy and increasingly unstable "Onion Union" is another. Many other downright charming individual moments stand out — the increasingly heavy wash of distorted organ that dominates the shambling kick of "Greenock," the more serene keyboard flow of "Spike/Spear" (with extra end vocals and, as the credits accurately put it, rattle by the very youthful Lucy Danko), and the much more conventional acoustic guitar lope of "Both Beasts."