Three guys from Boston who play non-power pop. The sound they achieve with guitar, bass and drums is often overwhelming. These songs are more noodly and conceptual than your average pop trio, and there's a delightful deconstructive bent that appears at the most inappropriate moments.

Vundabar Surgery and Pleasure (self-released)

Which is to say that Vundabar is playing no one's game. If the guys have crafted a solid hook, they'll find a way to invert it. If, god forbid, a glorious chorus emerges from the spartan arrangement, the lyrics will devolve into music criticism. Stuff like that. Damn, this is so much fun for a music geek.

I don't think that Vundabar is iconoclastic just to be cool. My guess is that this is the only way these guys know how to write and play. This album is a bit more adventurous than their last couple, but the general sense of intellectual chaos is familiar.

The arrangements are just as adventurous. Elements that usually come to the fore are buried, and vice versa. Again, this is intentional, but not intentionally obtuse. It's just the way these boys do business. Get with the program and prepare to fall in love and break up over and over again. My ears are itching.

Jon Worley