***1/2 Creeper Lagoon

I BECOME SMALL AND GO

(Nicklebag)

Although it comes by way of the same indie label that brought us Beck's first single (the Dust Brothers' Nicklebag), and though one of the Brothers, Jon King, even worked on three of the songs, the debut album by San Francisco's Creeper Lagoon is not some lone bedroom eccentric's exercise in pomo pastiche. The ingredients may not be completely straightforward -- "Prison Mix" incorporates a looped sample of what is apparently a Bulgarian shepherdess chant -- but the results are refreshingly easy to digest. Which is no big surprise: Creeper Lagoon are more or less a trad band, with a guitarist who sings (Ian Sefchick), another who fills the tunes with crisp tuneful hooks and grainy distortion (Sharky Laguana), a bassist (Geoffrey Chisholm), and a drummer (David Kostiner). What's more, they write songs rather than deconstructing them -- songs that are at once moody and playful, like Echo and the Bunnymen in the early days, or the Church back before they got way too pretentious. And if nothing jumps out at you right away, that's because every track's as appealing as the next -- indeed, I Become Small and Go is one of the best debuts I've heard all year.

-- Matt Ashare