Bobtail Yearlings are an artsy pop, literary folk rock band from Los Angeles who combine sprawling vocal melodies with jangly, jagged guitar hooks and furious muted mandolins. Their new album is called Yearling's Bobtail, an eighteen-song album of epic ideas and ambitions four years in the making, that is part novel, part musical theatre.

Yearling's Bobtail is the brainchild of lead singer Bennett Samuel Lin. An autobiographical narrative album, it relates all the details of Bennett's childhood which disgruntled and hardened his character - from growing up with an autistic brother's self-destructive and endless tantrums, to his spiritual bitterness after breaking away from a mind control cult - that eventually led to the deterioration of his first relationship. Exploring the theme of hurt, and its cycle of perpetuation in which victims grow up to become abusers, the album ends with an affirmation that redemption is possible, and spirituality can be reclaimed.

The lyrics whisk through a range of literary styles, from the stream of consciousness of "Good Night, Sita", to the mondegreens and playful wordplay of "Willy the Cocoa" and "Bastard of Suburbia". Bennett also offers a lyrical device of his own invention called doublespeaker rhyme, used in "Cremated", "Odin" and "On a Golden Cord", whereby two different sets of lyrics that rhyme syllable for syllable are sung simultaneously, each one panned hard to a single speaker.

Stylistically, the songs reflect an eclectic range of genres. The album starts with the familiar twee pop of "Didi", then dives into the jittery, mandolin-laced rock of "Willy the Cocoa". "Ash Wednesday" plays with Arabic quartertones, then settles into a mediaeval psalm. "Pchelka's Starry Journey" is a wild mix of Russian folk, Tuvan throatsinging, and electric guitar feedback. The Celtic reel of "Garryowen" segues into the barrelhouse romp of "On a Golden Cord", which then jumps into a klezmer scale. Even "Cremated", a straightforward rock lullaby, contains an auditory illusion known as a Shepard tone, where the background note seems to constantly descend in pitch, yet somehow remains fixed in place throughout the song.

I think I'll buy this. Gonna check out a couple more songs first. But looks cool, even if I'm not sure exactly what a "furious muted mandolin" is supposed to be.