Take Will Oldham, Kevin Shields and Brian Wilson, throw 'em in a great big foodservice blender, press the purée button and what do you get? YUCK! A horrible, nauseating soup of blood, splintered bones and liquefied organs! Bleccch! And that's nothing -- things won't get any better when the cops show up.

To avoid spending the best years of your life in prison, skip the blender experiments and pick up Treble with the Sweet Snake Prize. On this sophomore effort, Brian Hall has further honed his peculiar songwriting style; the classic pop melodies are even catchier, the low-fi folk rock aesthetic is lower-fi and folkier and feedback is still a deadly weapon. Hall's lyrics paint pictures of classic Americana, but the images blur and shift -- and sometimes the paint flakes and peels off while you watch. Feedback drenches the Flaming Lips-y rock of "Begin on the Fade", soaking through into "Our Town". "Siren (On the Way In)" lays down a warm, welcoming organ line over vibraphone plunking and vocal ranting. The gorgeously percussive instrumental "Key Largo" makes a striking lead-in for "The Original Theatrical Trailer Parks", a straightforward rock construction buoyed by layered vocals and bleary feedback. Need more rock trappings? "When Caution Blushes" pairs gentle country-pop harmony with restrained electric guitar wailing. You'll find a wealth of almost cinematic imagery here -- Hall is adept at seizing perfect moments and twisting them into music. Treble with the Sweet Snake Prize gives you enough miniature scenes to savor for months.