[ rock/pop ]
San Francisco's Sic Alps don't so much sprint as stagger efficiently through 22 sludgy, desultory lo-fi jams in about 45 minutes on their Drag City debut, Napa Asylum, which comes off like an early Guided by Voices EP if you replaced Bob Pollard's Cheap Trick fetish with a penchant for '60s psychedelic folk. You never know what's gonna burble up through the blanket of fuzz and reverb — noisy skronk, wispy jangle, hard-driving blues, hummable pop, tender ballads — but sit with it a minute and something's sure to give you a tingle.