Moon Duo: Mazes

Label: Sacred Bones

Moon Duo are like a psychedelic gateway drug: Through Mazes, their new full-length on the Sacred Bones label, a larger audience of innocent indie-rockers could be corrupted and coerced into the limitless void that is heavy psych -- mwah-ha-ha-ha! As if that'd be a bad thing! The pleasures of Moon Duo (one of the two members being guitarist Ripley Johnson of Bay Area psych-repeaters Wooden Shjips) are simple yet rich: Guitar and keyboards, the kind of vocals that you're sure are sung by someone wearing shades, and steady beats. The Moonies have always been hypnotic but we've never heard them so poppy: The title track has so much cool Velvet Underground energy you could die -- strumming guitars that catch fire, keyboard grooviness wrapping around it like a hug. "Fallout" repeats the formula but heavier, and besides, it's never a bad thing when Moon Duo repeats themselves. But Mazes' sharpest moments come when the band plays with pop forms, as on "When You Cut," which buzzes along with synthetic finger-snap-like beats until eventually, like most Moon Duo songs, the guitars burst into ice-blue flames.