The first six selections on this release encompass some of the best R.E.M.-style songs never written by that band. “Michael Rockefeller” is a breathlessly rushed masterpiece with echoes of that other Athens band’s “West of the Fields.” “Pray for Rain” is a howling, intense number that snitches the opening two chords of Jefferson Airplane’s “3/5 of a Mile in 10 Seconds” for its own beginning. Weighty concerns about religion are voiced in the ringing “Fear of God;” this song borrows the opening guitar riff from “I Call Your Name” by the Beatles. “Spirit Train” is a slower, intensely foreboding selection that suggests a highly charged version of R.E.M.’s “Old Man Kensey.” What follows all this are a clutch of songs with bizarre or puckish lyrics in a wild array of pop styles. “T.R.O.U.B.L.E.” is a hot jazz-influenced track with goofy lyrics about sibling rivalry. “I See Moe” is a jumpy country-punk number that compares the speaker’s personality dysfunction to that of the Three Stooges. “Dead Eyes” is a thundering, hard-rocking cut with threatening verses about unknown terrors and things that go bump in the night, resulting likely from too much booze. And “Cattle Prod” has to go down as one of the strangest pop songs ever written, a grindingly grandiose number with arena-rock touches that has creepy lyrics about bestiality. This is an excellent, if sometimes bewildering album very much worth hearing. – David Cleary