Look long and hard at the cover art for Weasel on a Weathervane. There’s a house, a winding road, and an abundance of trees. This is isolation music, basically; what happens when two multi-instrumentalists who double as engineers head somewhere deep in the woods and make music. The two musicians at the core of the band – George Ayres and Jake Baker – trade off vocal duties, and while each has a distinct style, the distinctions aren’t so jarring that there isn’t some overlap. The closest comparisons I can make are to likeminded genre-straddling artists: The introverted, gloriously shambling work of Sparklehorse, the glacial neo-country of Souled American, the skewed jangle of Wilco offshoot Loose Fur. Weasel on a Weathervane isn’t a perfect disc – occasionally its solipsism renders its songs too dense – but when it works, it does so remarkably well.

“ Blasted Record Effect” opens the proceedings. The lyrics call up memories of self-consciousness, with the delivery all heartbroken regret; we hear a strummed guitar, then piano, and a drum roll leads us in to quietly harmonizing vocals and pulsing distortion. Quiet is indeed the new loud, and the template’s been set for the rest of the album: Stylized production, bold shifts in tempo, and hushed vocals. “Don’t Hold Your Breath” has a tendency to trail off into lengthy, almost somnambulistic stretches. While I recognize that the song’s title suggests that Messrs. Baker and Ayres are aware of this, it still doesn’t work quite as well as it should. Live, I can see how the pauses might serve the song’s crescendo better, but the more minimal moments don’t have the tension to make the song’s eventual payoff…well, pay off.

“ Summer Lasted Two Days” is one of Weathervane’s more upbeat songs, juxtaposing ethereal vocals with crashing percussion and a damaged-sounding guitar tone. “Significant Figurines” opens with a jagged roar of feedback, giving us a minute of cacophony before Ayres’ vocals tremulously enter the picture, and the song becomes much more fragile. Two minutes later, a xylophone picks up the melody, which becomes more sing-song, and the song segues into the carnivalesque “Snake In the Grass.”

There’s a transcendental tendency in Armored Frog’s music, and yet it’s equally rooted in rock conventions: The guitar, drums, piano. It’s that tension that fuels the record: the ragged sound of blown-out amps contrasting with some other, equally clear sound. Intimate lyrics are made ambiguous through their treatment. The best comparison that can be made for the sound heard on this album isn’t based on similarity, but on approach. Certain bands use distortion and dissonance on every song, while others use it far more sparingly. In the latter case, even a minimal amount of feedback can sound wrenching; the band has taken the time to establish their own guidelines, and then proceeds to circumvent them. Weasel on a Weathervane works in a similar manner: It creates its own space distinct from what’s come before, and sets itself to work constructing something new. – Tobias Carroll