Elf Power: Creatures

Elf Power has been playing its own brand of garage psychedelia since the early '90s, even before the band allied itself with the likeminded collective known as The Elephant 6 Recording Company. The E6 label initially presented inventive homemade productions that were simultaneously dreamy, melodic, and raw, but its later output gave equal time to murky and pretentious neo-prog, with oddball instrumentation and pseudo-mythic decor seemingly swiped from Yes' Tales From Topographic Oceans. Elf Power has long had its feet in the best and worst of the Elephant 6 stylistic streams, having recorded some of the catchiest songs that the ramshackle dreampop genre had to offer, while giving those songs titles like "Into The Everlasting Time." The Athens quartet's latest, Creatures, is a concept album about the various monsters that arise from the human subconscious. But as precious as that may sound, the what-dwells-in-darkness theme actually anchors Elf Power, pulling the group down from fairyland. Singer-songwriter Andrew Rieger submerges his wispy monotone vocals in grime and echo, and on the title track and "Palace Of The Flames," the unusual chord changes and thoughtful melodic structures bring an aura of elegance to the spooky mental mansions that the lyrics describe. The requisite rock-orchestra backdrop of strings, keys, and kitchen sinks also falls under more exact control, mostly working to enhance the mood instead of supplying cheap novelty (with a few exceptions where the arrangements are too giddy for the nightmarish visions they're supposed to support). Creatures misses producer Dave Fridmann, who gave the last two Elf Power discs much of their sparkle, and it misses departed bassist Bryan Poole, whose punk grounding and odd pop-song contributions put Rieger's flights of fancy into context. But Creatures' scuffed-up sound serves these stories of beasts, demons, and the fears they provoke. The record is as tuneful and spirited and bordering-on-goofy as anything in the Elf Power catalog. It's also as affecting, with a palpable sense of anxiety about, as one song puts it, "Things That Should Not Be."