Crashing through layers of psychedelic, garage-infested rock, Comets On Fire delivers a unique taste of sonic abuse on the band's latest release, Blue Cathedral.

Formed in Santa Cruz, Comets On Fire began in 1999 when founding members, Ethan Miller (vocals, guitar) and Ben Flashman (bass), decided to create a band that wouldn't be subservient to commercial ramifications and wouldn't bend into any specific genre conventions. With Blue Cathedral, Comets On Fire draws closer to its goal, lacking the more straightforward psychedelic attack of the group's previous releases (the 2001 debut and 2002's acclaimed Field Recordings From the Sun) and opting to take the best bits of Pink Floyd, the Who and Blue Oyster Cult and smash together a sound that solidly leaves one foot in the past without sacrificing a modern sound.

Psychedelic rock has grown, at least for major label releases, into a cheesy way for bands to release boring mellow rock (The Shore) or for established rock groups to experiment with anachronistic sounds, usually without much luck. The bands that fully incorporate the ideals of psychedelia and the genre's aesthetic specifics into their own songs (as opposed to just copping a feel from Tangerine Dream on a one-off flop) are the groups that use conventional sounds to create new music. Psychedelic rock has created some of the freshest genre-bending groups out there: everyone from Sonic Youth and Tortoise to Camper Van Beethoven, Eleventh Floor Elevators and My Bloody Valentine have utilized psychedelia to augment their unique sounds. Comets On Fire is making its way toward this ideal.

Comets On Fire are not afraid to rejoice within psychedelia, but the band also pulls in influence from Nuggets-style rock, noise and punk, sounding nothing like the big label groups that co-opt the psychedelic label to sell their records to rich-kid neo-hippies.

Since its inception, the group has grown to include drummer Utrillo Belcher, guitarist Ben Chasny and Noel Hammonson manipulating electronics. The group's recent touring buddies, which reads like the track list to an all-star mix tape (including Sonic Youth, Kinski, Sunburned Hand of Man and Rocket From the Tombs) have also rubbed off on Blue Cathedral.

Blue Cathedral is refreshingly raw, the band's amplifiers buzz and slap and the percussion continually dissolves into oppressive aural assaults. The album kicks off with the crushing, bombast of "The Bee and the Cracking Egg," where the group locks into a thick, groove-filled riff and smashes it apart with a staggering drum progression and massive electric guitar freakout. Miller's vocals operate as simply another musical instrument, barely emerging out of the mist of guitar clatter and shattering cymbals. The bluesy slam and Miller's manipulated vocals (which sound huge, even though they aren't anything entirely new) mad dash into a slow meltdown that eventually builds up again into a mass of rolling noise, only to once again relax into a polite and calm final progression.

"Pussy Foot the Duke" is an organ-heavy instrumental eulogy sometimes bowing down a little too far into straight-up 70's rock flair, one of the only points where Blue Cathedral fails to really progress the group's intriguing sound.

"Whiskey River" abruptly plunges the record back into a collision course orgy of catapulting guitar feedback and smudges of electronic noise, barely letting up as Miller unleashes his frantic banshee screams. The track blazes through an acoustic guitar interlude before relying upon Tim Dacy's stellar saxophone playing to propel itself into an avant-rock swirl, pile-driving the band into a mess of sax squelches and huge guitar licks before succinctly locking onto a single, colossal riff.

The album's high point, "The Antlers of the Midnight Sun" erupts with a blistering guitar part and Miller's vocals shattering into an analog void. The guitars twist around a deep, distorted bass line while Belcher blasts out malignant percussive explosions. The song escalates into heavy-rock melodics and shimmering guitar soloing, before fizzling out abruptly.

"Brotherhood of the Harvest" makes great use out of a ghostly organ and guitar progression while an acoustic strums the track into oblivion. An acoustic riff opens "Wild Whiskey," another partially filler jam that never entirely pays off, but leads very nicely into the album's closer, "Blue Tomb."

"Blue Tomb" starts slowly, traversing each style of the previous seven tracks until it strips down and the band finally pulls back enough to showcase Miller's broken vocals, which bounce off into a thousand echo chamber directions.

While a few tracks act as filler jam sessions (Wild Whiskey" and "Pussy Foot the Duke"), there is a binding and cohesive feel to Blue Cathedral that makes the disc stand out among the throng of pallid psychedelic imitators.