With the opening call of a melancholy trumpet and the slowly rising sounds of a pretty female voice, Omaha's humble quartet Kite Pilot announce their arrival on the scene, immediately convincing me that anything and everything they do in the months and years to come is probably worth hearing.

The girl-boy sing along that sparks opener "Tree Caught The Kite" takes on a cutesy-kooky character with the help of a few modulation effects cued by a simple synthesizer part. "And the skip of my heart / It's the path of my thoughts / In the space in between / Where the real time floats" -- I don't know what this means, and I can't be bothered to figure it out, but hearing Erica Peterson and Austin Britton sing it in and among a few unpretentious time-signature changes and a decidedly sharp generic shift will make you an instant fan. "Belong" maintains the band's character, previously established with a few esoteric instrumental flourishes and similarly impenetrable lyrics, but it isn't quite as compelling and Petersen's performance is not quite as strong. However, the gorgeous ballad "Don't Stand" (with a wonderfully phased and fuzzed out guitar solo) and the tragic "Cellar Door" -- is that a Björk affectation I hear? I love it -- confirm the scope of Kite Pilot's quirky sound and the depth of their talent. A full-length album will almost certainly bring the band a few steps closer to pop perfection.